Athyra

“Of me?”

“Of me.”

“Oh.” Savn could feel Vlad’s eyes on him. He looked back, then said, “What did you do?”

“I?” said Vlad. “Nothing.”

“But I would have been beaten if—”

“If something happened that prevented a beating, consider yourself lucky and don’t ask any questions.”

Savn watched him for a while. “You’ve been beaten before, haven’t you? I mean, when you were younger.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Because you were an Easterner?”

“Mostly.”

Savn felt himself smiling a little. “Well, you survived; I suppose I will too.”

“Very likely,” said Vlad. “Only ...”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you have a friend who helped you?” The familiar enigmatic smile came and went. “Yes, I did.”

“Did he ever explain why he helped you?”

“No,” said Vlad slowly, as if the thought had never occurred to him. “No, she never did.”

“Did you ever wonder?”

“I still do.”

“Maybe I always will, too, then.”

“No,” said Vlad. “I suspect one day you’ll know.” Savn nodded, and decided that this was all the information he was likely to get. “How was your talk with the minstrel?”

“Satisfactory. I got some of what I was after; I’m hoping to get more.”

“Then I don’t doubt that you will,” said Savin. “I’ll see you later,” he added, standing.

“Are you certain?”

“Oh, yes.” Savn felt a small smile come to his lips and wondered if he was starting to copy Vlad’s mannerisms. He said, “I still want to impress girls.” He walked back to the table where he’d left his sister, and discovered that she was watching him.

“What were you talking to him about?”

“Just passing the time,” said Savn, picking up his ale. As he sipped, he realized that whatever mood or spell had been on him had broken; he was himself again.

He finished his drink in silence, then announced, “It’s time for me to go.”

“Already?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll wait here for the minstrel.”

“Your friends will probably be joining you.”

“Maybe,” said Polyi, as if she couldn’t have cared less.

Savn looked at her for a moment, then leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

“What was that for?” she said.

“Because,” he said. “Not everyone has a sister.” He stood up and headed for the door. Just before he walked out, he turned and looked at Vlad, who was watching him. Savn inclined his head toward Vlad, and set off to spend the day with Master Wag.

He stopped about twenty paces outside the door, just to take in the day—doing what Master Wag called “Enjoying the now of it all,” though Savn thought that was a silly way of putting it.

The row of thin maples that marked the Manor Road wagged in the odd dance of mildly windswept trees, looking as if there were an entirely different breeze for each one. The sky had greyed, covering the overcast and hinting at the rain that Savn had been expecting each day of the harvest. Polite of it, he decided, to wait until they were done.

There was almost no one in sight, perhaps because of the threatening weather. Savn rather enjoyed being rained on, unless it was also cold and windy, but most people seemed not to like—

His meditations were interrupted by the odd sight of six or seven strangers walking around from behind Plaster’s hut, just across the way from Tem’s. They were all armed with long, heavy swords, and dressed in black, and Savn fancied he could see that above each breast was the Athyra crest of His Lordship.

What would seven of His Lordship’s men-at-arms be doing here, now?

He didn’t consciously answer his question, nor did he consciously decide to do anything about it, but he turned at once and went back to Tem’s to find Vlad.

When he entered once more, Polyi, who was still seated near the door, said, “What is it, Savn?” which was the last clear thing he remembered; all the rest of it he reconstructed afterwards from what Polyi told him and the fragments of memory that remained.

He shook his head and walked over to Vlad’s table, according to Polyi. Savn remembered how the Easterner was staring off with a distracted look on his face. Before Savn could say anything, however (Savn was never certain what he was going to say, in any case), Vlad rose abruptly to his feet; the table at which he had been sitting tipped over, landing on its side with a loud thunk. Vlad moved so quickly, Savn could hardly see him, which Savn later remembered as being the point at which he realized that Something Was Wrong.

There was a heavy step behind him, and he turned and saw one of the soldiers he’d noticed earlier, now holding his sword and charging through the door, directly at Savn. No, he realized suddenly, at Vlad.

Savn never remembered deciding to get out of the way, but somehow he was against the counter, watching more soldiers enter the door. They stepped over the body of the first one—Savn had not seen what happened to him—and Savn realized the scream in his ears had come from his sister.

He looked back at Vlad, who was now standing on a table, holding a sword in his right hand, and swinging what looked like a gold chain in his left. The sight of the Easterner’s shiny black boots on top of Tem’s table imprinted itself on Savn’s memory and brought back older memories, of a dancer who had come through town a long, long time ago.

There came a splash of red on the boots, and Savn’s eyes traveled up Vlad’s body until he was aware of an ugly slash along the Easterner’s side. He didn’t know how he’d gotten it. He also saw one of the soldiers writhing on the floor, and there was the glint of steel reflecting the lamps on Tem’s walls.

Somewhere, far from Savn’s conscious thoughts, he was aware of tem and his guests all scampering out of the way through doors and windows, but this seemed unimportant; Savn, unable or unwilling to move, stared at the scene before him.

For just an instant, he was able to watch the swordplay, three soldiers against the Easterner, all four blades slicing, thrusting, and whirling as if they went through the movements of a beautiful, terrible dance, and when one slipped through and struck Vlad deeply in the upper thigh, that, too, was planned and necessary.

The illusion shattered when Vlad suddenly teetered and fell, amid tables and chairs. At the same time, one of the soldiers fell back and turned around. At first, Savn thought the man’s hand had been injured, and then Savn realized that the man was clutching his throat, which had been horribly cut open. He watched the man fall, and felt ill.

And two familiar, winged shapes flew into the room and struck at the backs of the two soldiers who still stood, and two more soldiers came in from the back of the room.

Savn remembered thinking very clearly, Well, if I had any doubts about the jhereg, this should settle them.

There was an instant that was filled with swords flailing against the air, and then it all stopped, and the two jhereg flew back out the door.

One of the soldiers said, “Where did he go?”

Another said, “Get the healer!”

Another said, “It’s too late for Tevitt.”

Savn stared at the place where Vlad had been, and where now there were only reddish stains; then, without a thought for the injured soldiers or his terrified sister, he turned and fled out the door. He ran around to the back of Tem’s house and hid behind the stables, trembling.

Chapter Nine

I will not marry a starving painter,

I will not marry a starving painter,

I’d get skinny and just grow fainter.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

Savn heard the heavy tramp of feet leaving Tem’s house. He waited a little longer to be sure, then made his way back inside. Polyi sat where she had been, looking awestruck and slightly ill. There were no injured or dead in sight, but Tern was already cleaning the floor where blood had been spilled.

He sat down next to Polyi and noticed that his hand was shaking. He put it on his lap under the table. She said, “Aren’t you late for going to Master Wag’s?” as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“I guess so,” he said.

After a moment, she said, “Why did you run out?”

“I was too frightened to stay,” he said.

“Oh. Me, too.”

“Then why didn’t you run out?”

“I was too frightened to move.”

“Are you all right now?”

“I think so. I’m shaking.”

“Me, too.”

He noticed that several people had come in, attracted to the scene of the excitement by some magic he didn’t un—

derstand. They were talking in low tones, and pointing to the overturned tables and chairs that Tem was in the process of straightening. “You should go home,” said Savn. “I will,” said Polyi. “Are you going to Master Wag’s?”

“Yes, I—I’m not certain. I just want to sit here for a moment.”

Polyi’s eyes widened suddenly. “I can’t wait to tell Slee about this.” Before Savn could say anything, even if he’d thought of something to say, she was up and out of the door, running.

Savn considered what he wanted to do. Master Wag was expecting him, but Vlad was out there somewhere, hurt. But there was no way to find Vlad, even if he wanted to.

After a moment of thinking, he went up to Tem, who had finished cleaning the floor. He asked Tem for some food, which he put into a large sack that Tem supplied. Tem didn’t seem curious about what Savn wanted these for, or maybe the Housemaster, too, was so stunned by what had happened that he wasn’t thinking clearly. Savn got a large jug of water, sealed with a wax plug, and put it into the sack with the food, working it down to the bottom so it wouldn’t crush everything else.

He slipped into the back and found an empty bedchamber, from which he removed a towel, a sheet, and a blanket. Vlad would be able to pay Tem back for these, if ...

He went out the back way, and wondered where to begin looking. Vlad had certainly teleported, and done so faster than Savn had thought possible. How long had it taken? In fact, he didn’t know; everything had happened so fast. But it was certainly much quicker than it had before.

What was it he had said? Something about if you were in a hurry ... Yes, it was about setting up a place to tele-port to, which could be anywhere; there was no way to know—

He suddenly remembered his first sight of the Easterner, standing next to the Curving Stone, making lines on the ground with a dagger.

But he had said that was witchcraft.

But he was certainly capable of lying.

Savn began running down the Manor Road, convinced he knew where Vlad was. As he ran, he realized that he had no idea why he was going to all of this trouble, and he wondered, too, about the heavy sack in his hand, which was making running so tiring as it bumped against his hip. He shifted it to his other hand and slung it over his shoulder as he reached the top of the hill and started down the long, bending road that lead to the Curving Stone.

Why am I doing this? he wondered, and the answer came as quickly as he’d formed the question.

If he ignored Vlad, he’d never learn anything more, and what he’d learned felt like a door that had opened just enough to let him see that on the other side was a place he desperately wanted to visit, maybe even to live. And he knew he would always berate himself for cowardice if he let himself be driven away from the Easterner.

He could try to sneak around, and still spend time with Vlad without being seen, but that didn’t feel right either, and he suspected that he wasn’t much good at sneaking around. And to be found out would be worse than being openly seen with him.

But if he continued associating with the Easterner, how would he continue to live here? There wouldn’t always be friendly jhereg to—

He shook his head, shying away from wondering how it had happened that, just when he faced being beaten by his friends, out of nowhere there came ... No. He didn’t want to think about it, not yet.

And so, naturally, it was just then that he noticed a rustling in the trees overhead, and, yes, of course there were two jhereg, arrogantly sitting in the branches, almost as if they were watching him. He stopped abruptly and stared back at them.

They were the same size and color as the two he had seen—when was it? He’d been walking with Polyi, and then he’d gone to Master Wag’s, which was the day Dame Sullen’s arm had been broken, so that would be ...

The same day Vlad had shown up.

They were the same two, of course; it was silly to try to deny it. The same two who had rescued him, and who had rescued Vlad, and who he’d been seeing, again and again, since Vlad had appeared. Maybe it had even been one of them that had been sitting on the roof of Tern’s house, listening in on everything that was said.

He tore his gaze away and covered the remaining twenty or thirty feet to the Curving Stone, breathing hard, and looked for traces of blood on the ground. He found them right where he expected; large red splotches.

Where had the Easterner gone? He tried to find a trail of blood, but there didn’t seem to be one.

He turned back to the jhereg, who were still watching him. If he spoke to them, could they understand him? Of course not. He frowned.

“Well?” he said aloud. “What do you want? Why are you following me?” He swallowed, hearing the echo of strain in his own voice. In the back of his head he heard Master Wag talking about hysteria. The jhereg stared back at him impassively. He shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes again. He spoke again, this time slowly and carefully. “I’ve brought food for him. Where is he?”

The smaller of the two jhereg spread its wings, then refolded them, looking hesitant. When folded and seen from the side, each wing formed an almost perfect triangle, as if nature had intended to give the beast a shield against the arrows of men. Yet seen from the front, it looked like there was a snake’s head bobbing up and down between the walls of two houses that had been built too close together.

It spread its wings again, and this time left its perch. It dropped just a little until it caught the air, and then rose quickly and flew over Savn’s head. Its mate followed it, and Savn turned to watch them fly.

They made a high circle, climbing until he thought they were going to vanish into the overcast; then they flew back down so quickly he thought they were about to attack him, but they landed some distance away. He could barely see them through the trees—about forty feet from the road.

Savn plunged into the thicket after them. Just below the tree in which they rested he almost tripped over the Easterner’s sword; no doubt Vlad had dropped it as he’d stumbled along. He picked it up by the hilt, noticing that the blade was still stained with blood. He wondered what it was like to hit someone with it. His musings were interrupted by a hiss from one of the jhereg. He jumped, startled. They were, apparently, impatient for him to find Vlad.

Very well, then. He looked further ahead, and at once saw a dark object, not far away at all, that looked like it didn’t belong. A few steps closer and he realized that it was the bottom of Vlad’s boot, toe pointed toward the sky.

Savn knew, even before he reached Vlad, that the Easterner was alive, because his breathing was obvious—quick and shallow. Breathing like that meant something, he knew, but he couldn’t remember what. Or maybe there were several things’ it could mean. Was it blood loss? It wasn’t a concussion, he was sure of that. It occurred to Savn that one of Vlad’s lungs might have been punctured, in which case he’d be unable to do anything except watch the Easterner die.

Savn came up next to him, knelt down, and studied his face, seeing at once that his skin had an odd grey tint and that his lips were blue, and, in fact, so were his eyelids and ear lobes. The colors meant something; he was sure of it. Savn shook his head and thought, He’s dying.

And so he seemed to be. Not only did his lung appear punctured, but it looked like his neck had been broken—the veins and the windpipe stuck out horribly from the throat, and at a funny angle, down toward the Easterner’s left side.

He was muttering as well, but only incoherent sounds, grunts and squeaks, as if his ability to make words were gone. His arms and torso were moving weakly, and without any apparent purpose. A terrible sorrow filled Savn—he was convinced that Master Wag would be able to heal him, punctured lung and broken neck or not, but Savn himself just didn’t know enough. If Master Wag were here, he’d ...

Savn frowned. If Vlad’s neck was broken, could he move about like that? Savn tried to think of what the Master had said about such injuries, but he couldn’t remember hearing about them. The Master had spoken about the neck as the stream that fed the mind, and that if the spine were severed, the brain would starve from want of thoughts. Maybe this was what he meant; this was what a body did when there were no thoughts to guide its actions. It was horrible.

And then, as if to underline the ghastly sight, Vlad’s delirious babbling ceased long enough for Savn to hear an awful sucking, bubbling sound that came from somewhere on his body.

As Vlad began mumbling again, Savn wondered what could cause the sucking noise. If the lungs had been pierced, that might account for a wheezing, but would the escaping air sound like that? Probably, he decided. But still ....

There was a dagger at Vlad’s belt. He removed it and one of the jhereg hissed at him.

“Shut up,” said Savn abstractedly. He cut open Vlad’s jerkin down the middle and pulled it aside, exposing a chest full of dark, curly hairs. Was that normal for Easterners? He didn’t stop to give it further thought, because he saw the wound at once—about halfway down on Vlad’s right side. There wasn’t all that much blood—Savn almost wished there were more, so that he wouldn’t have to look at the pink tissue that was lying open—but what there was of the escaping blood bubbled and frothed.

Vlad’s breath was still coming rapidly, and was very shallow. Oddly, though, only one side of his chest—the left side, away from the wound—was rising and falling. And what bothered Savn most about the queer chest movement was that he’d seen or heard of such a thing before.

Where? When?

He looked at Vlad’s face once more; it was grey, but seemed no more so than it had a moment before. He looked again at Vlad’s chest, watching the left side rising and falling rapidly, while the right side hardly moved. It was familiar, and it wasn’t. He closed his eyes, and tried to recall Master Wag’s words.

“I found it because I was looking for it. It isn’t the sort of thing you can see easily....”

That couldn’t be it, because it was easy to see.

“I was looking for it because I found the broken rib. And I found the broken rib because it was hit in the side.”

Wait, though. “It”?

“... the sort of thing you can see easily in a pig.” Yes! Cowler’s stud-hog, butted by their goat. Cowler had spent ten minutes on his knees begging Master Wag to look at it, because Birther was off somewhere, and Master Wag had finally agreed only because he thought Savn might be able to learn something useful. “We’re a lot like pigs, inside, Savn,” he’d said, and refused to make any jest on the subject. Yes.

Vlad was still mumbling. Savn tried to ignore him and remember what the Master had said. It hadn’t been that long ago. “... knocked a hole in the Cave of the Heart, so the lung collapsed ... no, not the heart, the Cave of the Heart, where the heart and the lungs live. Same thing can happen to a man, you know. You’ll learn about that some day. Now, go fetch a bottle with a plug, and you’ll learn what I can do with a couple of reeds. Good thing this was a hog; they have the same sort of lungs we have, which I told you half an hour ago, though you probably weren’t listening, as usual. You’ll learn about that, too, someday. Run along now, before this smelly beast up and dies and makes a fool of me.”

The procedure came back to him, and with the memory came the fading of hope. He had the water, which he’d brought for Vlad to drink and to repel the Imps of Fever from the wound, and there was even a wax plug in it, but he had no reed, nor anything that could be used as one; none of the plants that grew around here were both hollow and wide enough to work, and it would take hours to reach the river and return. Vlad didn’t look like he would live for hours.

He glanced at the sword which he’d dropped next to Vlad. If it was hollow, it would be perfect; long and flexible ...

He stared at the empty sheath at Vlad’s hip. How well-made was it? Savn had drunk from leather flagons; leather could certainly be made watertight.

He had to hurry, but there was still time for thought. He’d waste less time if he figured out what he had to do, every step, before he did anything else. Finding the sheath was enough to give him hope; he began to think that everything he needed was here if he could just find it; what he had to do was get it right the first time. How could he make the puncture? No, he didn’t have to; the sword that had cut Vlad had made a fine puncture; all he had to do was to seal it up while he was working on it, and then again afterwards. How?

Well, for the first step, his hand would do well enough, but how about later? The sheet he’d taken from Tern’s house certainly wasn’t airtight; could it be made so? Was something that was watertight also airtight? It had to be; how could air get through if water couldn’t? Well then, if he could find a candle, he could melt wax onto the cloth from the sheet.

He took Vlad’s belt off, found his belt pouch, dumped it out, and looked at the contents. There was a piece of flint (why would a sorcerer need flint?), a few odd-looking sewing-needles (but no thread), a few scraps of paper, a purse with several gold coins in it as well as some silver, a bit of wire, a few small clay vials of the kind that Master Wag kept potions in, but no candles. Well, that made sense, why would a sorcerer need a candle? Then he frowned ... the wax plug on the water bottle? He’d have to melt it, but it might work. So he’d need a fire. Okay, there was plenty of wood around, and he could set the cloth near the fire, and then cut shavings from the plug and set them on top of the cloth where they could melt and make an airtight seal to put over the wound; it wouldn’t have to be very big; the wound itself was less than an inch wide.

He should cut the strips first, before doing anything else, so he could have them ready. And he’d have to cut the bottom of the sheath.... What about the second tube? Oh, yes, there was the sheath for Vlad’s dagger. That was also leather. Would they both fit in the jug?

He felt an instant’s panic at the thought that he’d dropped the food sack somewhere, but it was sitting next to him, where he’d set it down while he looked at Vlad. He took out the water jug he’d gotten from Tern. Yes, the mouth was good and wide. It would be hard to jam the leather sheaths through the wax plug though, and he’d have to be careful not to push the plug out, or rather in. Well, he had the dagger, he could cut holes in it.

How much water should be in it? He wished someone would make a jug one could see through. Well, about half-full would be easiest, because then he could be certain that the long sheath was in the water and the short sheath was out of it—or was it supposed to be the other way around? No, that was right: “wound to water, air to air,” Master Wag had said. “Why?” Savn had asked. “Because it works,” the Master had replied.

Savn went through the entire procedure in his mind, and when he was sure he had it right, he cleared a three-foot circle of ground, gathered a few twigs and leaves and struck a small fire with his own flint an arm’s length from Vlad. He got it going, added a couple of branches, and found a few rocks to set next to it. While they were getting warm, he cut several strips from the bedsheet he’d taken from Tern’s house and set them on the stones.

The jhereg hovered around, looking interested; Savn tried not to think about them. Vlad seemed greyer. His arms and legs were still moving about without purpose, and he’d shifted his position slightly. The odd angle of his throat seemed to be worse, too. His speech was still unrecognizable. Savn remembered that Master Wag had said something about the heart being crushed if the Cave of the Heart became too small. Savn started working faster.

The dagger was sharp enough to cut through the leather of the sheaths with little difficulty. Savn made the cuts at an angle, so there was almost a point on them.

He took another look at Vlad. The process—whatever it was—was accelerating; he could almost see Vlad’s skin getting greyer. “Don’t die,” he said aloud. “Don’t you dare die. You hear me?”

He took the water jug and made two holes in the plug with the dagger, then widened them as much as he dared. “You just hold on there and breathe, and I’ll fix you up, but if you die I’ll kick you in the head.” He measured the two sheaths against the bottle, and made marks on them with the dagger at the appropriate levels. “Breathe now, you Eastern son of a kethna. Just keep breathing.”

The smaller of the jhereg watched him raptly. “Okay,” he told it, “here’s the first hard part.” The sword sheath slid into the hole with surprising ease, and the sheath for the dagger just as easily. He held a piece of hot wood near it to melt the wax, then blew on the plug; there was now a water jug with two leather sheaths sticking out of it, looking like the remains of a flower arrangement that hadn’t been very pretty in the first place.

“Hmmm,” he told the jhereg. “That wasn’t bad. Now for the first test.” He blew into the open end of the sword sheath, and was rewarded by a bubbling sound from the bottle, and the feel of air against his left hand held over the other sheath.

“Airtight,” he announced to the jhereg. “This might really work. I’m glad he has such well-made stuff.”

He sat next to the Easterner and put a hand on his chest. Vlad didn’t react to the touch, so maybe he was too far gone to notice what was about to happen. This part was scary, and Savn was afraid that if he hesitated at all, his courage would fail. “Here we go,” he said to the jhereg, and opened up the wound with his fingers.

The puncture was small but ugly, between the fifth and the sixth ribs, still not bleeding much, but still bubbling and frothing, and making a burbling sound that ought never to come from a body. The end of the sheath would fit over the puncture easily, but he’d have to get past the outer edge of the wound, which might be too big.

Savn started to bend the sword sheath, but the bottle almost tipped over. He cursed, let go of the wound, and bent the sword sheath with both hands, putting a kink into it. That would never do.

He felt himself trembling, and almost gave up the whole idea, but instead he gritted his teeth and played with the position and angle of the bottle until he could draw the long sheath smoothly all the way to the wound with no sharp bends in it.

Once again he opened the wound with the fingers of his left hand and tried to put the point of the sheath into it. It was a tight fit, and the skin actually tore slightly, but he was able to cover the puncture while wrapping the outer edge of the wound over the sheath. He held it in place as tightly as he could, wishing he had thought of a way to secure it without using his hand. Well, with any luck, Vlad’s skin would provide the seal, and it wouldn’t have to be there long.

It took a long couple of seconds to bend over to the bottle without changing the position of the sword sheath, but he managed, and, while he had the chance, exhaled.

Then he put his mouth over the dagger sheath, made sure of the grip of his left hand, and inhaled through the sheath.

The results were astonishing.

There was a bubbling sound in the bottle and Vlad gave a twitch; Savn was only barely able to keep the sword sheath in place over the wound. But he held tight, and when he dared to look at the Easterner, he could hardly believe the change. Both sides of his body were now expanding evenly, and his throat was no longer angled so oddly—Savn had thought that even if it worked, it wouldn’t happen so quickly. Since it had, he was suddenly fearful that he’d overdone it somehow, though he didn’t know if that was possible, or what the results would be.

He wished he’d paid more attention to Vlad’s normal color, but his skin was certainly losing its ashen appear—

ance, and his lips no longer looked blue. He had stopped waving his arms about, and his breathing was deeper and slower.

“That was quick,” remarked Savn to the jhereg. The smaller one hissed, spread its wings, and was still, which Savn hoped meant that it was pleased.

The next step, however, was the hard one: sealing the wound without letting Vlad’s lung collapse again.

His left hand still held the sheath against the wound in Vlad’s side; he increased the pressure as much as he could, and took the dagger into his right hand. One of the jhereg hissed. “Shut up,” he said distractedly. “I’m trying to help him.”

Manipulating the knife to shave off bits of the wax plug while keeping a firm grip on the wound was perhaps the hardest thing Savn had ever done—he would have been unable to do it at all if he’d had to hurry. As it was, he was concentrating so totally that he hardly noticed when Vlad began speaking again, this time in words, but with no apparent thought behind them. Savn heard him speak but paid no attention.

When he had a shaving of wax on the flat of the knife, he set it on one of the cloth strips that was resting on the rock near the fire, then went back for another shaving before he could take the time to consider how difficult this really was. He dropped the next one, left it on the ground, and went back for another, which he managed to bring over to the cloth. Then a third.

That should do it.

The wax had melted, and what had been a cloth now ought to be an airtight patch. He picked it up by an end and waved it around enough to cool it off.

“Here it goes,” he told the jhereg. The jhereg watched him mutely.

Savn held the patch next to the wound, and at as close to the same time as he could, withdrew the makeshift tube and slapped the cloth over it.

Vlad moaned once, but fortunately didn’t begin thrash—

ing. Savn watched his chest motions, but they never wavered. He held the patch in place and took some of the longer strips to wind them about Vlad’s body.

One problem that he hadn’t anticipated was how hard it would be to get the cloth under the Easterner’s back while making sure the patch didn’t slip from the wound, which would open up the Cavern of the Heart and he’d have to do everything all over again. In the end, he had to let go of the patch for an instant, but fortunately the wax seemed to hold it against Vlad’s skin long enough for Savn to slip the cloth strip under him. He positioned it carefully, then tied it tight around the Easterner’s stomach, making sure it held the patch in place. Then, just to be sure, he wrapped two more strips around Vlad, again making them as tight as he could.

He let out his breath as if he’d been holding it the entire time, and said, “I don’t believe I did it.” He stood up and staggered over to a nearby tree to rest his back. He noticed that his hands were shaking. That was stupid. Why should they shake now, when everything was all right? Well, it was a good thing they hadn’t been shaking before.

The smaller jhereg hissed at him angrily. It seemed to be staring intently at Vlad’s left leg, where blood had soaked through his leggings.

“Oh,” said Savn wearily. “Yes. Well, he can’t be bleeding much, or he’d be dead already.” The jhereg resumed hissing at Savn. He sighed and went back to Vlad, made a slit down his legging and pulled it back to expose the wound, which was still bleeding, though not profusely. He splashed water over it so he could see it better, and because water was always good for keeping the Fever Imps from a wound.

The small jhereg was staring at Savn, as if waiting to hear the report of his examination. “The seam itself is but shallow,” he said, imitating Master Wag’s tones, “yet the scar will go from his knee to his ankle, and it will take a great deal of cloth to cover it. I hope I have enough,” he added to himself. Then he noticed how bloody the water was, and resolved to find a stream and get clean water as soon as he could.

Vlad was still talking to himself. Savn made certain his breathing was all right and that his throat looked straight, then set about cutting the rest of the sheet into strips, wondering why his throat had been fixed at that funny angle, and what had caused it to return to normal. He would have to ask the Master about that.

Master Wag would, no doubt, consider that today had been well-spent in learning his future trade, but Savn had no intention of telling him about it.

He gave Vlad a last inspection. As far as he could tell, the Easterner would be fine; he’d even stopped mumbling. For a moment Savn just stared at the Easterner, amazed that someone who had been so close to dying a few short minutes before now appeared to be sleeping peacefully, as if nothing at all was wrong with him. He felt unreasonably annoyed, as if Vlad’s apparent health were mocking all the work he’d done. Then he shook his head. “I’ll never understand how people are put together,” he muttered.

She perched in one of the thick lower branches of a friendly maple and watched her mate, waiting for the signal to kill, but it didn’t come.

She was not unhappy with the battle she’d been in earlier, but when the Provider had been hurt, her mate had screamed as if he’d been the one who was injured. She wished she’d understood what the fight had been about, since no one had seemed interested in eating anyone, but she was used to this. She also wished her mate would decide once and for all whether this soft one below her was a friend or an enemy.

Her mate continued watching it, and she felt his moods—now suspicion, now amusement, now something not unlike affection—but never a firm decision. She whipped her tail with impatience, but he didn’t notice, and just then she suddenly realized that the Provider was going to live. This surprised her, although she hadn’t been aware of how she knew he was dying, either.

And at about this same time, her mate suddenly turned, took to the air, and landed beside her.

Very well, then, they’d let the soft one live. She hoped either it or the Provider would supply some food soon; she was hungry, and she hated hunting.

Chapter Ten

I will not marry a wealthy trader,

I will not marry a wealthy trader,

He’d keep me now and sell me later.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

Savn became aware that the shadows had lengthened, and wondered if he’d fallen asleep, sitting with his back to the tree. Perhaps he had. Everything was very still. He checked Vlad’s breathing, which was all right, then checked the bandage on his leg, which had soaked through. He removed it and inspected the wound. It was no longer bleeding, at any rate—or, rather, it hadn’t been bleeding until he removed the bandage. He knew there was a way to take bandages off without starting the wound to bleeding again, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It annoyed him that he could have managed something as tricky as getting Veld’s lungs working again but couldn’t remember how to treat a wound.

But he cleaned it once more, using the water sparingly, then wrapped it in what remained of Tern’s fine cloth bedsheet. He noticed again how bloody the water looked, and wondered if it really mattered; it was, after all, Vlad’s own blood; perhaps it was good for him.

He leaned against the tree again. He wondered if he ought to go to Master Wag’s where he was expected, but he didn’t want to leave Vlad alone; he preferred not to take any chances on someone or something, by accident or design, undoing all of his work.

As this thought formed, he realized that he felt rather fine; he had managed a very difficult procedure under far from ideal conditions, in spite of having only the vaguest idea of what the problem was, much less the solution. He looked at Vlad and smiled, then looked at the two jhereg, who were now seated next to each other on the ground, their wings folded.

“I feel like I can do anything,” he told them.

The smaller one looked at him for a moment, then curled around and rested its head on its neck, looking at Vlad. What was the relationship between Vlad and the jhereg? It had something to do with witchcraft, he knew, but what was it exactly? Would he ever know? Would he ever be enough of a witch to do such things himself?

Why not?

If he could save a man’s life with a jug of water and two pieces of leather, he ought to be able to perform spells, especially after everything he’d been shown. He remembered that odd state of mind, which felt like a dream, but where his thoughts were sharper than being awake—distant, but present. Why shouldn’t he be able to get there himself? He remembered how Vlad had done it; he should be able to do it on his own.

He leaned back against the tree, pretending he was sinking into it. Slowly, methodically, he took himself through the procedure that Vlad had shown him, relaxing his head, neck, shoulder, arms, and every other part of his body. By the time he reached the soles of his feet, he felt curiously lethargic—he knew he could move if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to; he was held motionless by his own will. It was an odd feeling, but not quite what he wanted.

Sink, he told himself. Back into the tree, down into the ground. Feel heavy. I am a beam of light, and empty, and I will travel in and down. I am heavy, so I will fall. There are steps that lead into the tree, past its roots. I will take each, one at a time, and with each step, I will go deeper. And, almost to his surprise, it worked—he felt light as air, heavy as stone; his vision was as intense as a dream, yet he could control it.

He was very aware of his own breathing, of the sounds of the small, scurrying animals around him, of the light through his eyelids. He wished to remove himself from all of these things that were part of his world, so: Again, deeper. Deeper. Draw in and down.

Savn imagined his body sinking further through the dirt and the clay and the stone, and with each layer, he became more distant from himself, from Vlad, from the world he knew. He was aware of controlling his descent, and so he gave up the control, and drifted.

Falling through the ground to the spaces beneath, alone, spinning in place, seeing without eyes, walking without legs, coming to an emptiness where emotion is pale and translucent, and sensations are the fog through which thoughts are observed. He regarded himself, reflected in narrow seclusion, and realized that, in fact, he was not alone, had never been alone. His sister, his mother, his father. Master Wag—they slowly spun around him, looking away; his own gaze retreated and advanced, went past them all, past his friends, past the Easterner.

He created a vast forest to walk through—a forest the like of which he’d never seen, where the trees rubbed shoulders and their tall, thick branches created a roof. At his feet was a large silver goblet. He picked it up and carried it with him for a while, enjoying the coolness he imagined against his fingers. Or did he imagine it?

There was a break in the forest, a clearing, and tall grasses grew there. He was barefoot now, and he loved the way the grass felt between his toes. In the center of the clearing was a pond of clear water. He dipped his goblet into it, and drank. It was very cold, yet he knew that he could dive in and it would be as warm as a spring afternoon. He thought of doing so, but now was not the time. He walked on, and before him was a high stone wall. In the way of dreams, it had appeared before him with no warning, stretching out to the sides forever, and towering high above him. For a moment he quailed, as if it were a threat rather than an obstacle, but he thought, This is my dream, I can do as I will.

And so he took to the sky, like a jhereg, circling once, then up, past the wall and out over the chasm of the future, into which he could climb or jump, the choice arbitrary but full of significance.

Like a jhereg?

There was a jhereg there—no, two of them—flying about over and under him, saying, Isn’t it grand to fly to fly to fly? But now you must choose must choose must choose.

It annoyed him, to be told what he had to do by jhereg, so he refused to choose, but instead continued once he was over the wall, continued aloft, light as the air, warmed by the winds of chance, until the burden of his own power threatened to pull him down.

“I need wings,” he said to the emptiness below him.

“No,” said a voice which he did not recognize. “You are wings. You do not fly, you are flight.”

The surprise of hearing a voice where nothing could exist outside of his will was buffered by the words themselves—What did it mean to be flight? He was now wrapped in the dream fabric he had created, and in his confusion chasm and world disappeared, leaving him bodiless and nowhere, yet he scarcely noticed, for the sensation of flight never left, which, he realized suddenly, was the answer.

“I can go anywhere, then; do anything.”

“Yes.” The voice was quiet, and echoed oddly in what were not his ears, its age.and sex impossible to determine, and irrelevant.

“But this is only my dream. When I am awake, I can’t fly and there is only one path.”

“This place will always be here.”

“But it isn’t real.”

“Real? No. It is not. The trick is to find this place along the one path you think you have. Then, perhaps, you will find others.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.”

“This is where Vlad lives, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are you G’mon, the Lord of Dreams?”

The answer was accompanied by a laugh that reminded him of Polyi’s. “No.”

“Then who are you?”

“It does not matter.”

Below him, around him, there were points of light. He knew without trying that he could focus on any of them, and learn of it, and it would be as important as he chose to make it. How, then, to choose among them?

“What does matter?” he said.

“You matter, and he matters.”

“He? Vlad?”

“Yes.”

“I need his help.”

“Yes, you do. But he needs you more than you need him, you know.”

“I saved his life.”

“Yes. And he will need you again.”

“For what?”

“Be kind,” said the voice, trailing away in an impossible direction. He tried to follow, and rose up, up, up. The world he had built was gone, so he thought to build another as he rose. He was climbing now, and weaving in and out of thick strands that were the roots of the tree of the world. There was a strange sound, and it was a coolness on his face. The darkness had become light, yet he was unaware of the transition. Sensations grew, and seemed real: a stiffness in a shoulder, the fluttering of a bird, the smell of the trees and the brush.

He opened his eyes.

“You were far away,” said Vlad.

Savn stared. The Easterner still lay on his back, but his eyes were open. In his hand was the wax plug from the bottle, and the two leather sheaths that were still thrust through it.

“You’re awake,” said Savn.

“Yes.”

“How do you feel?”

“Pleased to be alive, as well as surprised.”

“No,” said Vlad, “don’t tell me.” He looked at the odd device in his hand, inspecting the blood at the cut end of the sword sheath. “I think I’d rather not know how you did it.”

“All right.”

“But I owe you my life, and I won’t forget that. Where did you go?”

“I was, uh, I guess I was exploring.”

“How was your journey?”

“It was ... I don’t know. I’m not sure where I went.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, I was alone, only then everyone was there, and I made a forest and walked through it, and then there was a wall, and I flew over it, and there was a voice....” He scowled. “I don’t think I can describe it.”

“That was sufficient,” said Vlad. “You went to visit your dreams.”

“Yes. I knew it was a dream, and I knew I was making it up.”

“Did you like your dream?”

“Yes,” said Savn, sitting up suddenly. “I did.”

“That’s a good sign, then. You should always like your own dreams.”

Savn didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, he wanted to talk about it, but on the other, it seemed too private. He waited for Vlad to ask him a question, but the Easterner just closed his eyes.

“I have some food,” said Savn.

“Not now,” said Vlad.

“Do you think you can move?”

“No.”

“Oh. I’d like to get you somewhere safer.”

“Then you know I’m in danger?”

“I saw the fight.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. It’s a little hazy. How did I do?”

“How did you—”

“Never mind. Perhaps it will come back to me.”

The two jhereg rose, took a couple of steps forward, and flew off. Savn tried to follow them with his eyes, but they soon became lost in the trees. A moment later, Vlad said, “There is no one around.”

“Still,” said Savn. “I’d like—”

“In a while. I’m feeling very weak, right now; I need to rest. You don’t have to stay, however. I’ll be fine.”

Savn grunted. Vlad started to say something else, but instead he closed his eyes again. Savn ate bread and cheese, then took a chance and carried the water jug to the nearest stream and filled it, which took over an hour. When he returned, Vlad was still sleeping, but presently his eyes snapped open and he said, “Is someone pounding nails into my side?”

“No, you—”

“Just wondering.”

“It hurts?”

Vlad didn’t see fit to answer this question; he just closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again, then closed them once more and fell asleep. Savn felt his forehead, which he remembered to be the first place the Imps of Fever liked to attack, once a wound had allowed them into the body—he remembered how Master Wag had sat up with Lorr from Bigcliff for three days, bathing his head and chanting. But Vlad’s forehead seemed, if anything, slightly cool. Perhaps Easterners had cooler blood than humans.

It occurred to Savn that wet applications and chanting couldn’t hurt, in any case. He took some bloody scraps of the first bandage he’d made, dampened them, and put them on Vlad’s forehead, while pronouncing as much as he could remember of the ward against Fever Imps. He also tried to make Vlad drink water, and had some success, though much more water dribbled down his face than went into his mouth. Savn continued the chanting and the applications for about half an hour, until he noticed that Vlad was awake and watching him.

“How do you feel?” said Savn, who, for some reason, felt self-conscious.

“Weak,” said Vlad. “My side hurts like ... It hurts.”

“Can you eat?”

“No.”

“You should eat.”

“Soon.”

“All right. Want some water?”

“Yes.”

Savn gave him some water.

“I’ve been having some odd dreams,” said Vlad. “I can’t tell how many of them are real. Did I just have a fight with about six very large people with swords, wearing livery of the Athyra?”

“Seven, I think.”

“And one of them got me?”

“Two or three.”

“And I got a few of them?”

“Yes.”

“So that much was real. I was afraid it might be. Did someone harness me to a horse and use me as a plow?”

“No.”

“I suspected that was a dream. Were there three little tiny people standing around me arguing about who got what pieces of my body, and what to do with the rest?”

“No.”

“Good. I wasn’t sure about that one.” He winced suddenly, his jaw muscles tightening and his eyes squinting. Whatever it was passed and he let out his breath. “My side really hurts,” he said conversationally.

“I wish there was something I could do,” said Savn. “I don’t know much about stopping pain—”

“I do,” said Vlad, “but witchcraft would kill me, and sorcery would make my brain explode. Never mind. It will pass. I hope. Did I talk during my dreams?”

“You were mumbling when I got to you, but I couldn’t hear any of the words. Then, later ...”

“Yes?” said Vlad, when Savn didn’t continue.

“You said things.”

“What sorts of things?”

Savn hesitated. “You said some names.”

“What names?”

“Cawti, was one.”

“Ah. What were the others?”

“I don’t remember. I think you called ‘Kiera.’”

“Interesting. What else did I say?”

“The only other thing that I could make out was ‘wind it the other way.’”

“Hmmm. I imagine that was terribly important.”

“Do you think you can move?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It makes me nervous to leave you out here. We aren’t far from the Manor Road, you know, and—”

“And they may be looking for me. Yes. Unfortunately, I really don’t think I can move.”

“Then I should get you some more blankets, and water, and food.”

Vlad seemed to study Savn’s face, as if looking there for the solution to some mystery. Then he closed his eyes.

“There’s fresh water in the jug,” said Savn. “And some food.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Vlad.

“All right,” said Savn, and turned back toward the Manor Road, which would take him back into town.

Savn heard the mob before he saw them, which gave him the opportunity to slip off the road before they reached him. He was just coming up over the last hill before Tern’s house, and there came an unintelligible assemblage of voices, followed by the tramp of many feet. Savn hid in the flatbushes that grew along the road and watched as the townspeople came over the hill and passed in front of them. There must have been twenty-five or thirty of them, and he recognized several faces. Most of them were carrying hoes and rakes, and he saw knives in a few hands. They seemed grim but excited.

Savn waited for a few minutes after they’d passed, then rushed down to Tern’s house. It was, as he’d expected, empty except for Tem, who was wiping tables, and the minstrel Sara, who was sitting alone with her instruments and a cup. Tem looked up as Savn entered. “You missed them,” he said.

“Missed who?” said Savn.

“Everyone. They’ve gone off to look for the Easterner.”

Savn felt as if his heart dropped three inches in his chest. “Why?”

“Why? He killed some of His Lordship’s men, that’s why. His Lordship sent a messenger telling us that since it happened here, it was our responsibility to look for him.”

“Oh. Then they don’t know where he is?”

“No, they don’t,” said Tem. He looked hard at Savn. “Why? Do you?”

“Me?” said Savn. “How would I know? Did everyone in town go?”

“Everyone who was here except me and old Dymon. I stayed to spread the word to anyone who shows up late.”

“Dymon didn’t go with them?”

“No. He said it was none of our business, and tried to talk everyone out of it. I think he may have had a point, too. But no one else did. He called them a bunch of chow-derheads and stormed off.”

“Where are they looking?”

“Everywhere. And they’re spreading the word, so your Mae and Pae will probably hear about it. You should get on home.”

“I guess so,” said Savn. He moved toward the door, then stopped and looked back. Tem was ignoring him; Tem didn’t want to be part of the mob, either. Nor did old Dymon, whom Savn didn’t know well. But what about the rest? What about Lova, and Coral, and Lem, and Tuk? Why was nearly everyone in town so certain that finding and maybe killing Vlad was the right thing to do? Or, put the other way, why was he, Savn, not sure? Had he been enchanted? He didn’t feel enchanted.

He noticed that the minstrel Sara was looking at him.

On impulse he went up to her table, and without preamble, said, “What about you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why aren’t you trying to find Vlad?”

The Issola looked at him. “I’m certain that I would be of no use to them,” she said. “And I don’t live here, so I don’t believe it would be proper for me to interfere.”

“Oh. But what about him?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t understood you.”

“I mean, aren’t you worried about what they’ll do to him?”

“Well,” she said. “One can’t go around killing men-at-arms, can one?”

Savn shook his head, and, in so doing, noticed Tern going back toward the pantry, which reminded him why he had come in the first place. “Excuse me,” he told Sara. “I’d best be going.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you again,” said the minstrel.

Savn bowed as well as he could, and continued past her and through the curtain to the guest rooms. He found the room Vlad had stayed in, identifiable by the leather pack on the floor, and picked up this pack, along with a neatly folded blanket that lay at the foot of the bed. He rolled them into a bundle, which he tied with his belt, looked out the window, and then slipped through it.

The afternoon was giving up the battle with evening as he made his way out to the Manor Road, only to be hailed by a call of “Savn!” before he had left the last buildings of town behind him.

He almost bolted, stopped, almost bolted again, then turned and peered into the darkness, realizing that he knew the voice. “Master?”

“You didn’t come today. I was expecting you.”

“No, Master. I—”

“You were off searching the green for this monster with whiskers, along with everyone else?”

“Uh, no, Master.”

“No? Why not?”

“Why aren’t you?” asked Savn.

Master Wag snorted, and came closer. “Is that how you talk to your Master?” He didn’t wait for Savn to answer, however. He said, “I don’t know this Easterner, and he didn’t do anything to me, so why should I hunt him down? Now, what about you?”

Savn, not quite knowing why he did so, said, “I want to help him.”

“Hmmph. I suspected as much. Why?”

“Well, because ... I don’t know. I saved his life, and if they find him—”

“You saved his life?”

“Yes, Master. He’d been injured.”

“Tell me about it.”

Savn, as coherently and quickly as he could, gave a brief summary of the fight, explained the odd wound, and described what he’d done about it.

“Hmmph. Not bad. Did you perform the rituals against infection?”

“Not very well, Master. I don’t really know them, and I haven’t any herbs.”

“Hmmph. Then you can bet the demons have infested him by now.”

“I think he’s past the worst of the wound—”

“Not if he’s burning up inside.”

“But I can’t move him, and he’ll need blankets, so—”

“So, nothing. We can find the herbs we need as we go, if we go now, while there’s still light.”

“We, Master?”

“We’ll also need torches.”

“Torches?”

“It’s dark in the caves, and I can’t think of anywhere else he’ll be safe. There are torches at Speaker’s house, but I’d better get them myself, in case Speaker hasn’t gone with the others—I don’t think you could survive his questions. Wait here while I get them; then we’ll go see what we can do for your friend.”

Chapter Eleven

I will not marry a filthy hermit,

I will not marry a filthy hermit,

Such a life I could not permit.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

Master Wag, to Savn’s surprise, led them through the woods by paths that he, Savn, had never known. He had always assumed, without really thinking about it, that no one over the age of ninety or so, except perhaps for trappers and hunters, knew anything about the woods. The idea that Master Wag knew, or at any rate remembered, the forest near town startled him.

They made good time, even with a few stops to gather knotweeds and blowflowers, and they found Vlad as daylight was failing. The two jhereg were still there, and hissed suspiciously at Master Wag, who jumped back and began waving his arms around, as if to shoo them away. They didn’t move, but kept staring at him as if wondering what his peculiar gestures were intended to accomplish.

“It’s all right,” Savn said; then he repeated the words, this time speaking to the jhereg. He felt Master Wag looking at him, but the jhereg calmed down, moving closer to Vlad and watching carefully.

“When there is time,” said the Master, “you must explain this to me.” Then he knelt next to the Easterner. He moved his hand slowly, watching the jhereg. When they remained motionless, the Master touched Vlad’s forehead and cheek, and frowned. “He seems feverish,” he said, “but I don’t know about Easterners—perhaps they have wanner blood than we do.”

Savn touched Vlad’s forehead and said, “He was cooler than this when I left.”

“Well, then.”

“What do we do?”

“We get him to a cave, and then we bring his fever down. First, wrap him in the blanket.”

“All the blankets? Do we need to keep him warm?”

“No, no. It’s just easier to carry him that way. We have to keep him cool, not warm.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Roll up the blanket first, just a little on each side so we can grip—No, the other way. Good. Now lift his head and I’ll slide this—Good. Now lift up his waist. That’s right. Now his feet. Good. You’re younger than me; you take that end.”

“Just a minute,” said Savn, and picked up the sack containing the food and the water jug. He looked around for a moment, trying to figure out how to carry it, until Master Wag set it carefully on the Easterner’s legs. Savn opened his mouth to object, but could find no reason to. He felt his face turn red and was glad there was so little light.

Savn picked up the blanket at Vlad’s head, Master Wag picked it up at Vlad’s feet. They had no trouble lifting him. “Master,” said Savn, “it’s getting dark—”

“I know the way. Let me get turned around ... There. Now, be careful; we’ll have to go slowly.”

He led them deeper into the woods, but he must have struck some sort of path, because they didn’t have to stop or even slow down. They began to go down a gentle slope, and there were not even twigs brushing against Savn’s face, although Vlad seemed to get heavier with each step. Savn recalled the dreamwalking he had done, and wished this journey were as easy.

They came to the loose stone of the slopes above the caves and went down sideways, never quite losing their balance, but feeling the strain of maintaining it. Savn began to feel the effects of carrying the Easterner, light though he was. At about this time Vlad began to moan softly. Savn asked, “Vlad, are you awake?” but the Easterner said nothing that sounded like a response. A little later Savn said, “Master, maybe we should try this one?”

“I don’t remember how to get back to the water. Do you?”

Savn blinked back his surprise. “Yes, I think so.”

“All right. This way, then. Stop; this is far enough. I have to light a torch, or have you learned how to see in the dark?”

“How can we hold a torch and still carry Vlad?”

“I’ll drill a hole in your head for it.”

Savn considered himself answered. After carefully setting the Easterner on the floor of the cave, Master Wag brought one of the torches to light. He put it into his fist so it stuck out to the side, then indicated that Savn should pick Vlad up again.

They made their way back into the cave, Savn leading, until they could hear water dripping. “This is as far as we can go,” said Savn. “To get to the stream we have to go over this ledge and down a very narrow—”

“I understand. Set him down and let’s see how his fever is doing.” Vlad moaned again, and muttered something that sounded like “Do it yourself.”

Master Wag felt his forehead and said, “Start bathing his face with cool water, and find something to fan him with. I’m going to find the infection and see if we can exorcise it. Here, wipe this on his face, too. I have to find somewhere to put the torch—look!”

Savn looked in the direction Master Wag was pointing, but saw nothing except the two jhereg, who were sitting on the floor of the cave, wings folded, watching the proceedings. “What is it?” he said.

“They followed us!”

“Oh. Well, they’ve been doing that.”

“Mmmmm,” said the Master. “All right.”

He found a place to wedge the torch in between a pair of rocks, lit another, and set that on the other side of the cave. His two shadows performed an odd dance as he returned to the motionless Easterner. Savn continued bathing Vlad’s face and fanning him with the leather pouch taken from his room.

Master Wag peeled back Vlad’s shirt, and carefully removed the bandage. “Not bad,” he said.

“Master?”

“You could have done worse with this. But there are no signs of infection, which puzzles me. The fever—”

“Perhaps his leg,” said Savn.

Master Wag looked at the bandages wrapped around the Easterner’s thigh (which was hairy, like an animal’s, though Savn had not noticed this before), and began removing them. “Keep fanning,” he said.

Savn did so, and presently Master Wag said, “Yes, indeed.”

The wound had changed in the few hours since Savn had bound it. It was red, swollen, and puffy, and there was a thick white fluid coming from it. Savn stared, more fascinated than disturbed.

“Bathe his face again and keep fanning him.”

“What are you going to do?”

The Master didn’t answer, but began to remove things from his pouch—a sprig of laith, a vial labeled “essence of dreamgrass,” another vial with a light brown powder, mortar and pestle—and set them out around himself along with the knotweed and blowflower he’d collected on the way. Once more, watching the fluid efficiency of his hands while he worked, Savn was reminded of Vlad.

“Bathe his face,” repeated the Master, and Savn started guiltily, and complied. As he was doing so, his hand touched Vlad’s forehead; it had become even warmer in the time it had taken to get to the cave.

Savn began to fan him, but the Master said, “Wait, hold his head up so I can make him drink this.”

“What is it?”

“Crushed root of prairiesong, knotweed, and water. Tip his head—there. Down now, and begin fanning him again. Above all, he must be kept cool.”

Master Wag began touching and pressing the wound, and probing it with a thin, silvery tool that Savn could not recall having seen before, and, as he worked, the Master began to chant softly under his breath. Savn wanted to ask about the incantation, the tool, and the procedure, but he didn’t dare interrupt the spell. The Master broke off long enough to nod toward a pile of herbs and say, “Mash them well and add a little water.”

Vlad began speaking again, muttering phrases of which only a word or two was understandable. Master Wag looked up. “We do not pay attention to the ravings of those under our care,” he said, then returned to his soft chanting.

Savn did not answer. He handed the mortar to the Master, who took it without breaking off and poured the contents over the wound. Then he handed the empty vessel back to Savn and said, “Clean it, crush a small handful of those, put in three drops of this, and add more water to it. When it is done, make him drink it.”

Savn did so, holding Vlad’s head up. Vlad was still speaking, which made it easier to get the liquid down his throat. The Easterner coughed and half-choked, but did manage to swallow it.

The Master stopped his chanting and probing. “Notice,” he said, “how the edges of the wound are red. Are your hands clean? Then touch, here.”

Savn did so, tentatively. The wound seemed even warmer than Vlad’s forehead. “Sometimes,” said Master Wag, “it is possible to find the cause, the vehicle on which the Imps rode into the body. This time we were able to.”

“What?” said Savn.

“See, on the end of the probe?”

“What is it?”

“I believe it is a piece of his clothing, which was driven into the wound.”

“Clothing?”

“We wear clothing, why cannot the Imps? When a piece of cloth enters the body, it is almost certain that the spirits are riding it to a new home. It is our task to expel them. Thus I poured onto the wound the purest water I could find, mixed with laith, which demons hate, and blowfiower leaves which purify. And through his mouth we give him dreamgrass to help him sleep, and prairiesong which cools the soul.”

“I see.”

“Now I push—here—and we expel the Imps. You see how thick and grey is the solution? That is the grey of death. Necromancers are known to use it for evil purposes, so we catch it on a cloth, which we will then burn thoroughly. Here. Set it aside for now, until we have the chance to build a fire. Hand me a clean cloth.”

Savn did these things. Master Wag’s mention of necromancers made him think of His Lordship, but he put the thought out of his head, telling himself sternly to concentrate on the task at hand. As he was reaching for the clean cloth, both jhereg suddenly rose as one, stared down the cave, and hissed.

Savn looked but didn’t see anything. “Who’s there?” he said.

The answer seemed to come from a long distance away, and it was full of echoes. “Savn? Where are you?”

The Master looked at him, his eyebrows raised.

Savn got one of the torches and began walking down back through the cave, the jhereg, still hissing, at his heels. “No,” he told them, “it’s all right.” He wasn’t certain if they believed him; at any rate, they continued hissing.

He found Polyi about fifty feet away, apparently caught between several diverging paths. “What are you doing here?”

“Following you,” she said.

“Why?”

“To see what—Eek!”

“It’s all right,” said Savn. “They won’t hurt you.” He hoped he was right.

“Are those the same—”

Steven Bmst

“Never mind that. Come with me. We’re trying to heal the Easterner.”

“I know. I saw you.”

The jhereg watched Polyi suspiciously, but didn’t seem inclined to attack her. Savn led the way back to where Master Wag was tending Vlad.

“It’s my sister,” he said.

The Master grunted, then said, “Get back to work.”

Polyi didn’t speak.

Savn knelt down and touched Vlad’s forehead, which was still warm, as well as wet with perspiration.

“Bathe his head,” said Master Wag. “And I will teach you the spells. We will recite them together, and we will wait.”

“Savn—” said Polyi.

“Not now,” said Savn.

Less than an hour later, Master Wag touched Vlad’s forehead and said, “His fever has broken. We must let him sleep now.”

“My throat is sore,” said Savn.

“You must practice chanting,” said Master Wag. “Sometimes you will spend hour after hour doing nothing but sitting and reciting the spells. Your Easterner friend is lucky.”

Savn nodded. “How long will he sleep?”

“There’s no way to know. Probably a long time. But when he wakes, he will require water and—”

“Murmumph,” said Vlad. His eyes were open, and his expression was intelligent and aware. The two jhereg, forgotten by the side of the cave, began to hop around near his head. Polyi, who had not spoken for the entire time, just watched, her eyes wide and gleaming in the torchlight.

“I can’t understand you,” said Savn to Vlad.

The Easterner opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “Who?”

“This is Master Wag. He treated your fever.”

“Fever?” His voice was just above a whisper.

“Yes.”

Vlad glanced quickly at the jhereg and at Polyi, then nodded to Savn.

Master Wag said, “Would you like water? Food?”

“Yes,” said Vlad. “And yes.”

The Master nodded to Savn, who helped Vlad drink from the wineskin. “Do you have food?”

“Yes. I have some bread, and cheese, and spring onions, and beets, and a few seasonings.”

“Help me sit up,” said Vlad. Savn looked at Polyi. She hesitated, then helped Savn assist Vlad. It seemed to be quite an effort for the Easterner, but at last he was in a sitting position, his back very straight. He took slow, deep breaths. Something about the flickering of the torches made his face seem even more gaunt than usual. “More water,” he said.

Savn helped him drink.

“Back down,” said Vlad.

Savn and Polyi helped Vlad lower himself, and when he was flat once more, his breathing was labored. He shut his eyes, and in a few minutes his chest rose and fell normally. Savn became aware for the first time of the smell of Vlad’s sweat—very much like the smell of a human who had been working hard or was ill.

About the time Savn had decided that Vlad had fallen asleep, the Easterner opened his eyes again and said, “Food?”

Polyi said, “Where—?”

“I’ll get it,” said Savn.

He found the sack and rummaged around in it until he found the food. As he tore off a piece of bread, he noticed that his hand was trembling. “What should I give him?” he asked the Master.

“The bread is fine, and perhaps some cheese.”

“Put a spring onion on it,” said Vlad, “and whatever herbs you have.”

Savn did so, and then frowned. “Is it all right?” he asked Master Wag.

“Yes,” said the Master. “You may season the cheese. You must not put another scallion on it.”

Savn held Vlad’s head. Vlad managed a couple of laborious bites before he shook his head and asked for water. Savn supplied it, and Vlad leaned back once more, and this time he did fall asleep. While he slept, Savn tried a bite. Not bad, he decided. He offered some to his sister, who declined with a quick shake of her head.

“He’ll sleep for a while now,” said Master Wag. “Let’s start a fire.”

“Is it safe to leave him here?”

“Probably. But if your sister wants to help you find wood, I can watch him.”

“Would you like to help, Polyi?”

“All right,” she said in a small voice.

They took one of the torches and made their way out to the woods. “Savn,” said Polyi when they were alone. “What is—?”

“Why did you follow us?”

“I thought you’d know where he was.”

“Well, you were right. Now what? Are you going to tell Speaker where we are?”

“I don’t know.”

They gathered sticks and fagots from the thinly wooded area above the caves. “Why are you helping him?” she said.

“Because he’s my friend, and because everyone else is after him, and he didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t do anything? You saw Reins.”

“What makes you think he killed Reins?”

“What makes you think he didn’t? And what about all those men of His Lordship’s?”

“They attacked him.”

“Well, but what’s he doing here, anyway? Who is he?”

Savn remembered some of the things Vlad had uttered while feverish, and didn’t answer.

They brought the wood back into the cave. “Where shall we put the fire?” asked Savn.

“Over here,” said the Master. “Even though his fever is broken, we don’t want him getting too warm. Burn the cloth, keep the fire going, and I’ll return tomorrow. You should sleep, too.”

Savn nodded. The three of them built the fire together, after making certain there was enough of a draft to carry the smoke out of the cave.

“Tomorrow,” said the Master.

“I’ll still be here,” said Savn.

“You will?” asked Polyi.

“Yes.”

Master Wag left without another word, taking one of the torches to guide him out. Savn made a pillow out of Vlad’s pack, another out of one of the blankets, and stretched out on the hard cave floor. “I’m tired,” he said. “We’ll talk more after I’ve slept.” Actually, he doubted that he’d be able to fall asleep, but he didn’t know what to tell his sister.

As it turned out, he was wrong; he fell asleep almost at once.

Savn woke up to a not-unpleasant, wet warmth in his ear, accompanied by a nibbling that was almost affectionate and tickled. He rolled away from it, but the hard floor of the cave woke him more fully, and as he realized what was licking his ear, he sat up abruptly with a half-stifled scream. The smaller of the jhereg scurried away, then turned to look at him, its wings folded in tightly and its snakelike head bobbing up and down. Savn had the feeling that he was being laughed at.

“What happened?” said Polyi.

“Nothing,” said Savn, feeling himself blush and hoping Polyi couldn’t see his face in the dim light. The fire had gone out and so had one of the torches. The other torch was burning strongly.

Savn glanced at Vlad, who was awake and staring at the ceiling, apparently oblivious to the comedy being performed around him.

“How do you feel?” asked Savn.

“Water.” His voice seemed no stronger than it had be—

fore. Savn wondered how much time had passed, and was surprised to learn that it had been almost four hours.

“A moment,” said Savn. He lit a new torch and replaced the one that had gone out, then stepped into a side cave and relieved himself. When he returned, he found the skin and made sure there was still water in it, then helped Vlad to drink. Vlad seemed to have some difficulty swallowing. When he had done so, he said, “Weak.”

“Food?”

“Later.”

“If you need to ease yourself, there is a place not far from here, but you’ll have to get up and—”

“I’m all right for now,” said Vlad.

“Over there?” said Polyi. “I’ll be right back.”

The jhereg who had nuzzled Savn did the same to Vlad, who attempted a smile. Savn, watching, had mixed feelings. A little later, Vlad announced that he was ready to eat, and Savn and Polyi helped him do so. The bread was going stale but was still edible. Vlad had another drink of water. Then, with Savn’s help, he pulled himself over to the nearest wall so he could sit up and lean against it.

With no warning or explanation, both jhereg suddenly turned and began flying out of the cave. Vlad did not appear surprised. Savn wondered if they could see in the dark, like bats and dzur.

“What are we going to do?” asked Polyi.

“I don’t know,” said Savn. “It depends on Vlad.”

“Do?” said the Easterner weakly. “About what?”

“Well, they must still be after you.”

“Yes.”

“Can you teleport out of here?”

“Not now.”

“Why?”

Vlad searched Savn’s face. “Too weak,” he said at last.

“Oh.”

“Must recover first,” said Vlad.

“And then?”

Vlad looked slightly puzzled, as if Savn had asked him whether harvest came before or after planting. “Then I

must kill Lord Smallcliff, of course,” he said, and, as if producing such a long sentence had exhausted him, he fell back asleep.

She felt his unhappiness as if it were a cord that connected them, though she didn’t express it to herself that way. But there was a feeling of painful unease that made its way into her consciousness, and it was connected to the Provider, to his injuries.

They spiraled up from the caves, stopping below the overcast, and they began their search out over the bare fields between the town and the woods.

She hated hunting.

She enjoyed flying, and she enjoyed searching the ground for food, but she didn’t like chases, and she certainly didn’t like fights. In one case, she was certain to get tired; in the other, she might get hurt. And—

There was a movement, small and furtive, almost directly below her. She told her lover, but made no sudden moves. They rose and described a slow, leisurely turn. Her straining eyes picked out a patch of brown that didn’t quite blend with the surrounding grass and weeds. They continued past it once more, dividing up and selecting the best angles from which to attack. If one had to hunt, it was better together.

And sometimes, one had no choice.

Chapter Twelve

I will not marry a fat old cook,

I will not marry a fat old cook.

For the larding pan I’d be forsook.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

After the silence that followed Vlad’s declaration, Polyi echoed Savn’s own thoughts: “He can’t mean it.”

Savn stared at the sleeping Easterner, but the things he’d said while delirious wouldn’t go away. “I don’t think so either,” said Savn at last. “But ...”

“But what?” said Polyi when he didn’t continue.

“But I don’t know. Let’s get the fire going.”

“All right.”

They managed to get the fire started, and after some discussion, decided there was enough wood to keep it going for a while without having to leave the cave again, which neither of them felt inclined to do.

“Mae and Pae must be pretty worried about us,” said Polyi.

“Yeah,” said Savn.

“Well, I think we should tell them where we are,” said Polyi.

Savn shook his head. “They’ll tell Speaker, sure as drought in summer.”

Polyi stared at the sleeping Easterner, and Savn could practically feel her thinking, So what! And the worst of it was that he didn’t know how to answer that thought.

A few minutes later there was the sound of flapping wings. Polyi jumped and stifled a shriek, and the two jhereg landed on the floor of the cave.

“It’s all right,” said Savn. “They’re tame.”

“Tame?” said Polyi, sounding on the verge, of hysteria.

“Well, I mean, they’re friends of his.”

She stared at the Easterner wide-eyed, while the larger of the jhereg deposited what looked like a dead norska. They walked triumphantly over to Vlad and sat down near his head.

Polyi looked a question at Savn, who said, “I guess he wanted meat.”

“But how—?”

“Let’s find something we can use as a spit.”

Polyi looked at him, questions dancing on her face, but she didn’t ask any of them. They looked through the wood they’d collected and found something suitable, while the two jhereg seemed to be arguing with each other about whether the norska should be eaten right away. Savn settled the issue by taking it away from them and proceeding to skin it as best he could, which earned him an angry hiss from the larger jhereg.

“Sometimes,” said Savn, “people say really funny things when they’re feverish. Once Needles had the Dry Fever for almost two days, and she—”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Polyi. “He can’t mean it.”

“Yes. No one can kill His Lordship anyway, because of the box.”

“That’s right.”

Savn set the bloody skin aside for the moment, wondering what to do with it so it wouldn’t attract pests. They worked the makeshift spit through the norska.

“What should we set it on?” asked Polyi.

“I don’t know. Two of the logs?”

“What if they catch fire?”

“Well, we don’t have any big stones or anything.”

“We could just sit on each side of the fire and hold it.”

“I guess. How long will it take to cook?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you tell when it’s done?”

“Can you?”

“Maybe,” said Savn, and motioned Polyi over to the other side of the fire. “Best to keep it as high as we can, so we don’t burn it.”

Blood and fat dripped on the fire, sending the flames higher and making the cave alarmingly bright, but after only two minutes Polyi announced, “My arm’s getting tired.”

“Mine too,” Savn admitted. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

“Well, what should we do?”

They moved away from the fire and set the slightly warmed norska down on the floor of the cave. Savn glanced at Vlad, and observed that the Easterner was awake, and watching him intently.

“Why don’t you see if you can find something,” said Savn.

“Me?” said Polyi.

“You,” said Savn.

She started to argue, then scowled and got up. “Take a torch with you,” he said. She didn’t answer.

Savn turned to Vlad and said, “They brought you some dinner; we’re trying to figure out how to cook it.”

He nodded. “Pour wine over it,” he said. “My flask—”

“All right,” said Savn, and continued, “You said some funny things while you were feverish.”

Vlad’s eyes narrowed. The torchlight illuminated the side of his face nearest Savn, and the shadow of his forehead made his eyes seem very dark. “Tell me,” he said. His voice was forceful, in spite of its weakness.

“You used the word ‘Morganti’ several times.”

“Did I? I’m not surprised.” He paused to collect his strength. “You know what it means?”

“Yes. It’s a weapon that kills, not only the body, but—”

“Yes. Well, that’s probably what they’ll use on me if they catch me.”

“Who?”

Vlad didn’t answer for a moment, and Savn thought he had fallen asleep again, because his eyes were closed. Then he opened them and said, “The people who are after me.”

“That isn’t what His Lordship’s men used.”

“No,” said Vlad, frowning, “it isn’t.” He screwed his eyes tightly shut, then opened them again. He stared straight ahead, looking puzzled, then shook his head as if dismissing a line of thought. “What else did I say?”

“Lots of stuff. Most of it I couldn’t understand. And there were names and things.”

“And?”

“And you said, ‘I won’t kill for you anymore.’”

“Oh.” Vlad seemed to consider this. “Anything else?”

“Just before you fell asleep, you said you were going to kill His Lordship.”

“Did I? I must have been very tired.”

“To think it?” said Savn. “Or to say it?” Savn waited, but Vlad made no answer to this. Savn said, “Why do you hate him so much, anyway?”

Vlad’s widened nostrils flared. When he spoke, his voice was almost normal. “He’s a necromancer. He works with souls. When he needs one, he takes it, and does what he will. Do you understand what I’m saying? Does that mean anything to you? Would you like it if your life was snuffed out one day, with no warning, and for no crime, just because someone needed your soul, the way you might need a yard of cloth? What sort of person does that, Savn?”

Then he fell back, and he seemed to fall asleep at once.

A few minutes later Polyi returned. “I’ve found a couple of stones that might work,” she said. “But you’re going to have to help me roll them in.”

“All right,” said Savn.

“Did he wake up?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Yes. He really is going to kill His Lordship.”

The smell of cooking norska filled the cave, and Vlad still slept as Savn and Polyi continued their discussion. “I still say we should tell someone,” said Polyi.

Savn shook his head. “Even if no one will believe us?”

“Even so.”

The jhereg watched them, seemingly fascinated. Savn doubted they could understand the conversation, and hoped he was right.

“And even if His Lordship isn’t in any danger?”

“How can you know that?”

“No one can kill him, because he hides his soul in a magic box.”

“Well, we should still—”

“And even if they kill Vlad, if they find him?”

“He might be lying about that, you know,” said Polyi.

“I don’t think he is,” said Savn.

Polyi started to speak, looked at the sleeping Easterner, and shut her mouth. Savn turned the spit once more. Fat dripped; the fire blazed up, then died down again. Savn’s mouth was beginning to water and his stomach was growling.

“How long?” asked Polyi, who was evidently feeling the same way.

“I don’t know. How do you tell when it’s done?”

“Well, it’s brown on the outside. Pae always cuts it open, though.”

“Yeah, but what does he look for?”

“I guess if it looks like it’s ready.”

Savn scowled and found Vlad’s dagger, and cut open the norska. Some of the flesh was white, but some of it seemed translucent. “Well?” he said.

“I don’t know what norska should look like,” said Polyi. “I’ve never eaten any.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s done. Let’s let it cook some more.”

“I’m hungry,” said Polyi.

“Me, too.”

She stared at the fire and the roasting norska, and said, “Why does he hate His Lordship so much?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But he thinks His Lordship killed Reins, and—”

“He couldn’t have!” said Polyi.

“Why not?” said Savn.

“Well, because, he just couldn’t have.”

“I don’t know. But Vlad thinks so, and I guess he liked Reins or something.”

“Liked him? Were they, you know, lovers?”

“I don’t know.”

“They must have been,” said Polyi. “I mean, you don’t go killing somebody just because he killed someone you like, do you? If people did that, we’d have killed every soldier in the army by now.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s the same thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because ... I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.”

“I’ll bet they were lovers.”

“So now you think maybe His Lordship really did kill him?”

“Well, no, I’m not saying that.”

“Then what?”

“Well, just that maybe Vlad thinks so.”

“He seemed pretty sure.”

“So? He’s an Easterner; maybe they’re always like that.”

“Maybe,” said Savn, and fell silent.

This was, he realized, what anyone would call an adventure, and it felt like it. Yes, in a way it was terrifying, but it also had an odd, storylike quality to it—it wasn’t quite real.

Savn had never seen people killed before his eyes, and yet here was this Easterner talking very seriously of killing His Lordship. None of it had a sense of being his own memories; it was as if these were things he heard of in a song. The cave was real, and the feeling that he had embarked on something that he’d be able to tell stories about for the rest of his life; but the death and danger were off in the distance, not actually present, like when he had been standing outside of his house.

He kept coming back to that experience, he decided, because it puzzled and intrigued him, and because it seemed to mark a starting point. It had seemed, at the time, to be the beginning of something, but he hadn’t expected it to be the beginning of a time when he would be going through one thing after another that seemed unreal. In retrospect, though, it made a certain kind of sense.

He looked at Polyi. Was it real for her? She was wearing a frown of great concentration. He hoped that whatever her thoughts, they were not carrying her into a place she’d have trouble coming back from, because that would be truly, truly sad. For that matter, how was it going to affect him when it was over? Would he have nightmares for the rest of his life? Would he and Polyi wake up screaming for no reason that they could explain? He shuddered.

He caught Polyi glancing at him speculatively, and it occurred to him that she had seen him with the Easterner, and heard him agreeing that something that she might—no, would see as a great crime—was reasonable. He thought about trying to explain things to her, but realized that he really had no explanation; he was going to have to wait until she brought it up herself, if she ever did.

After a time, she said hesitantly, “Savn ...”

“What is it, Polyi?”

“Will you tell me something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you like Lova?”

“Vlad, wake up,” said Savn. “I think the food’s ready.”

“I’m awake,” said the Easterner in a voice so low Savn could hardly hear it. “Let’s see the norska.”

Savn suddenly wondered how much of the conversation Vlad had overheard, and decided it had been stupid to talk about it right in front of him in any case. He took the spit off the stones and showed it to Vlad.

“It’s done,” announced the Easterner. “Help me sit up.”

Savn and Polyi put the spit back on the stones, then helped him sit up.

“Now I want to stand.”

Savn said, “Are you sure you should—”

“And help me to the latrine.”

“Oh. All right.”

They took his arms and helped him up, and guided him to the other cave, and held him up until he was done. Then they brought him back and helped him sit up against the wall of the cave. The jhereg scampered along with him all the way. He sat there for several moments, breathing deeply, then nodded. “Let’s eat,” he said.

While they’d been helping him, part of the norska had burned slightly, but the rest was fine.

They ate in silence at first. Savn thought it was one of the best things he’d ever eaten. He wasn’t certain what Polyi thought, but she was eating with great enthusiasm.

“Do you know,” said Savn suddenly, “it just occurred to me that if there are people looking for us, and if they are at all nearby, the smell will bring them right to us.” He took another bite of roasted norska.

Vlad grunted and said, “Should my friends take that as a compliment on their choice of food?”

Savn took his time chewing and swallowing, then said, “Yes.”

“Good. I think the cave is deep enough that no smells will escape.”

“AH right,” said Savn.

Polyi was still eating and not talking. Savn tried to decide if she was looking sullen, but he couldn’t tell.

“It’s the wine that does it,” said Vlad. His voice seemed slightly stronger; at any rate, he seemed to have no trouble talking. “Cooking over an open flame is its own art, and doesn’t have much to do with oven cooking or stove cooking. I’m not really good at it. But I know that wine always helps.”

Savn wondered if it was the wine that made the norska taste so good, or if it was really the circumstances—if it wasn’t still the feeling that he was on some sort of adventure. He knew there was something wrong with thinking about it this way, but how could he help it? He was sitting in a cave with a man who spoke of killing His Lordship, and he was eating norska taken with magic—

“Vlad,” he said suddenly.

“Mroi?” said Vlad. Then he swallowed and said, “Excuse me. What?”

“I had always heard that it was bad luck to hunt with magic, except for finding the game.”

“I’ve heard that, too.”

“Well, then,” said Savn. “What about—”

“Oh, this? Well, it wasn’t exactly magic. At least, not directly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Never mind. It isn’t important.”

Savn decided that he was probably never going to understand what Vlad thought important. The most trivial things seemed to provoke the biggest reactions, like when Savn had mentioned that His Lordship’s men hadn’t been using Morganti weapons. Savn shook his head, wondering.

All of a sudden Polyi said, “You can’t kill His Lordship.”

Vlad looked at her without speaking.

Savn said, “Polyi—”

“Well,” she said to Vlad. “You can’t.”

“Of course not,” said Vlad.

“But you mean to. I know it.”

“Polyi—”

“Just out of curiosity,” said Vlad, “why couldn’t I kill him?”

“He’s a wizard.”

“So?”

Polyi frowned. “They say that he can never die, because his magic protects him. They say that there are rooms in his keep where he just walks in and comes out younger, and that he is only as old as he wants to be. They say—”

“And how much of this do you believe?”

“I don’t know,” said Polyi.

Savn said, “If it’s true, though—”

“It’s true that he’s a sorcerer.”

“Well, then?”

“No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.”

Savn couldn’t find an answer to that, so he didn’t make one. He looked at Polyi, but she was just staring angrily at Vlad. There was a sense of unreality about the entire conversation—it was absurd that they could be talking about killing His Lordship as if discussing the price of linen. There had been a time, some five years before, when he, Coral, and Lan had drunk wine until they had become sick. The thing he remembered most clearly about the incident, other than walking around for the next week hoping Mae and Pae didn’t find out about it, was sitting with his head bent over, focusing on nothing except the tabletop, slowly memorizing every mark on it. The memory came back to him with such a rush that it almost brought along the giddy, sickly, floating feeling he had had then.

At last he said, “But what if he is undead, like you say?”

“He is,” said Vlad. “That makes it a little trickier, that’s all.”

“Then you admit you’re going to do it,” said Polyi, in the same tone of voice she used upon discovering the piece for her game under Savn’s blankets.

“What if I am?” said Vlad. “Do you think I should just let him kill me?”

“Why don’t you teleport away?” said Savn.

“Heh,” said Polyi. “Teleport? If he could do that, he could have fixed his finger.”

“Polyi—” said Savn.

“First of all,” said Vlad, looking at Polyi. “I’m not a physicker. A physicker who knew sorcery could have healed my hand if I’d gotten to him quickly. Now it would be very difficult, and I haven’t been in touch with anyone that good in some time.

“Second,” he continued, looking now at Savn, “never attempt complicated sorcery—and teleportation is complicated—when you’re weak in the body. It upsets the mind, and that can be fatal. I’ve done it, when I’ve had to, and I will again, if I have to. But I’ve been lucky, and I don’t like to depend on luck.

“Third,” he said, addressing them both, “I do, indeed, intend to kill Loraan—Baron Smallcliff. But I’m in no shape to do so now. He knows I want to kill him; he killed Reins in order to draw me in, so that when I tried to kill him he could kill me. I don’t know everything that’s going on yet, so I don’t know how I’m going to kill him. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t have told you this much if I hadn’t betrayed myself already, and if I didn’t owe it to you.

“But there it is,” he said. “I’ve told you my plans, or as much of them as I have. If you want to betray me, I can’t stop you.”

He looked at them and waited. At last Savn said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“I think we should go home,” said Polyi.

“Then what?” said Savn.

“I don’t know.”

Savn looked at the Easterner, who was watching them carefully, his expression blank. “She’s right,” said Savn. “We really should go home.”

“Yes,” said Vlad. “I’ll be all right here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And, whatever happens, no one is going to be able to take me by surprise.”

Savn glanced at the jhereg and nodded.

Vlad settled back against the wall of the cave and closed his eyes. “I believe I will sleep now. Will you help me to lie down?”

When they were done eating, they gave the bones to the jhereg, who seemed well pleased with them. Savn wanted to say goodbye to Vlad, but the Easterner was sound asleep. He and Polyi left the cave together, blinking in the bright afternoon sun. They started for home.

Chapter Thirteen

I will not marry a handsome soldier,

I will not marry a handsome soldier.

He would not want me when I’m older.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

By—unspoken agreement they took the long way, not passing through town; as a result they didn’t see anyone. Savn wondered if there were still parties out looking for Vlad, and if Mae and Pae had joined them. Thinking of Mae and Pae filled him with a vague unease over and above his fear of whatever punishment they’d inflict on him for staying out all night. He thought about it, trying to figure out why, and eventually remembered how oddly they’d acted the night Vlad had come to their home, at which point Savn realized that he wasn’t afraid of what Mae and Pae would say; he was afraid of what they wouldn’t say.

It was as bad as Savn had feared, or worse. Mae looked up, nodded at them, and went back to stripping seeds. Pae, who was counting sacks, just gave them a brief smile and said, “Savn, isn’t it time for you to be at Master Wag’s?”

“Yes, Pae,” said Savn, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

“Well, be on your way, then.”

Savn watched Polyi, who was obviously trying to conceal how upset she was. She said, “Don’t you want to know where we’ve been?”

“Well,” said Mae, straightening up and stretching her back, “you’re here, aren’t you? You’ve been fine, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

Savn caught her eye and she fell silent.

“We’ll be going, then,” said Savn.

Mae and Pae nodded abstractedly and returned to their work. Savn and Polyi didn’t speak until they reached the house, where Savn gallantly offered to let Polyi bathe first.

She ignored his offer and said, “What’s wrong with them?”

“With who?”

“Cut it out,” said Polyi. “You know what I mean.”

Savn started to protest, then gave up and said, “I don’t know. I think—No, I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

“Never mind.”

“Is it something Vlad did to them?”

Savn looked away and repeated, “I don’t know.”

“Maybe he—”

“I don’t know.”

“AH right,” she said, pouting. “Don’t yell at me.”

“Do you want to bathe first, or should I?”

“I don’t care. Go ahead. No, I will.”

“Let me, I have to get to Master Wag’s.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I don’t know. I’ll hurry.”

Savn bathed quickly, and leaving the house, cut across the fields away from the counting bin so he wouldn’t have to face Mae and Pae again. He also skirted the town, although he was frightfully curious about whether they were still searching for Vlad.

When he arrived at Master Wag’s, he was greeted with the words, “I didn’t expect you to be here today. How’s our patient?”

“He was well when I left him, about five hours ago.”

“Had he eaten?”

“Yes.”

“No fever?”

“None.”

“Still weak?”

“Very.”

“Did he empty his bowels?”

“No. Liquid only.”

“Hmmm. Not good, but not yet bad, either.”

“Are they still looking for him?”

The Master nodded. “Not with any great intensity, perhaps, but Speaker insisted that they keep searching the area until they were certain he had left.”

“That sounds like they think he did.”

“Speaker probably does, but that doesn’t much matter. They’ll keep looking, I’m afraid, and eventually they’ll find the caves.”

“It may take a long time.”

“Oh, yes. It would take days to just search the caves—they’re immense, convoluted, and lead all the way back into the cliff. But still—”

“Yes. I hope they don’t get to them soon.”

“In any case, Savn, the Easterner shouldn’t be alone for very long. He could relapse at any time.”

“All right,” said Savn. “I’ll return at once.”

“No, as long as you’re here, you may as well relax for a while. We can discuss that procedure you performed. I want to show you just what you did, and why it worked, so you can be more certain next time.”

Which is what they did for the next hour; the Master explained the problem and the cure, while Savn listened more intently than he ever had before. It was different, he realized, when you knew exactly why you were doing something, when you’d actually seen someone with the injury and were learning how to save him.

After that, the conversation drifted onto other matters of the healing arts, and even here Savn noticed a difference in the Master’s attitude: he was less brusque and somehow more respectful of Savn—as if by saving the Easterner, Savn had proven himself to Master Wag.

At one point, the Master stopped in the middle of explaining the sort of thoughts that must be kept out of the head of a person in danger of fever, and said, “What is bothering you, Savn? You seem disturbed about something.”

“I’m not certain, Master.”

The Master looked at him closely. “Is it,” he said, “that you aren’t certain you should have saved the Easterner? Because, if that is the trouble, it shouldn’t bother you. Saving lives is our trade—all lives. Even, sometimes, that of livestock. Yes, if it is a choice between saving the life of a human being and saving the life of an Easterner, that is one thing. But in this case, you found someone who was injured and you cured him. It is no betrayal of His Lordship for you to perform your calling.”

“It isn’t that, Master. I think it’s Mae and Pae.”

“What about them?”

“Well, they’ve been acting funny, that’s all.”

“Funny? What do you mean?”

“Well, they seem distracted, like they’re far away.”

“Explain what you mean, Savn. Be precise.”

“It’s hard to, Master. It’s a feeling I have. But when Polyi and I were out all night, they didn’t say a word to us about it.”

“You’re growing up, Savn. They recognize this, and feel you can be trusted more. That’s all it is.”

Savn shook his head. “I’m afraid Vlad put a spell on them.”

The Master cocked his head. “A spell? What sort of spell, and why would he do something like that?”

“A witchcraft spell.”

“Witchcraft!” said the Master. “Nonsense. If you believe all of the rubbish that—Hullo, is someone there?”

There did, indeed, seem to be someone clapping at the door. Savn got up and opened it, and was startled to find himself looking up at Fird, the fruit-seller from Bigcliff.

Savn stared, open-mouthed, his thoughts racing. For one thing, he had forgotten how tall Fird was. For another, Vlad had been asking about him just the other day, and ... Savn realized he was being rude. He closed his mouth, opened it again, and said, “May I be of some service to you?”

“I be here looking,” said Fird, in his low, careful voice, and with the odd grammatical formulations of Bigcliff, “for Master Wag.”

“Who is it?” called the Master from inside.

“Please come in,” said Savn, stepping out of Fird’s way.

“My thanks to you for that,” said Fird, ducking his head as he passed under the Master’s doorway. Over his shoulder was a large sack, which Savn assumed contained the fruit he’d been selling.

The Master rose as he entered, and said, “What seems to be the matter, goodman?”

“A note is sent me to you, by for this Eastern devil. You know him?”

“Eastern devil?” said Master Wag and Savn with one voice. The Master gave Savn a look, then continued. “Do you mean the Easterner, Vlad?”

“The same as him, yes,” said Fird.

“I know him. He sent you a note?”

“That were, or the mountains grew him.”

Savn had to stop and figure this one out, but Master Wag said, “May I see it?”

“To you be done, then,” said Fird, and handed a small piece of pale, almost white parchment to the Master. The Master, in turn, frowned, read it several times, and, with a look that asked permission of Fird, handed it to Savn.

At first, Savn mentally tsked at the Easterner’s penmanship; then he wondered how Vlad had written it. It had probably been done in wood-ash using a dagger’s point. It read: “Sorry I missed you I’ve been hurt ask Master Wag to bring you to me I’ll pay gold.”

Savn handed it back to Fird, while the Master asked, “How do you know him?”

“How? As one will know another. Gold he is offered to me, and then he is not where his promise is. I be curious, I be finding fruit in sack, I be finding note, I be reading, I be coming here. But you he is knowing, and this I be in wonder at.”

“He’s hurt, as he said,” said the Master. “I helped him.”

“So?” said Fird, shrugging. “He is hurt. I have mangoes and apples, which will cure like a physicker.”

“Maybe,” said the Master, sounding doubtful.

“Apples. Apple’s the thing. Where with to—”

“Savn here will lead you to him.”

“Master—”

“You think it’s a trick?”

“Well—”

“If His Lordship, or Speaker, or anyone else knows enough to attempt this sort of trick, it doesn’t much matter if we fall for it.”

“Not to us, but—”

“Think about it, Savn. Think about how much they would have to know.”

“Trick?” said Fird. “Is what this—”

“The Easterner,” said Master Wag, “is hurt because some people tried to kill him. Savn is concerned that—”

“Ah. Well, is to careful, then, but I—”

“Yes, I know,” said the Master. “Savn?”

“All right. Should we go now?” Both Fird and Master Wag nodded.

“I may join you later, to check on our patient, or else I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Very well, Master,” said Savn, and led the way out the door and down the road toward the Curving Stone.

He was saved from the necessity of deciphering Fird’s speech by the fact that Fird didn’t seem inclined to make conversation, and Savn, for his part, didn’t know what to say. Just past the Curving Stone he led the way into the woods, through them, and out over Bigcliff. Fird looked down with interest at the beach where, though he probably didn’t know it, Savn had first pointed him out to Vlad.

Savn still wondered what the Easterner wanted with the fruit-seller. As they approached the cave, Fird stopped, sniffed the air, and said his first words since they set out: “Norska is been roasted.”

Savn smelled it too, and repressed a chuckle. So much for the smell not getting out. “This way,” he said, and led Fird into the cave. “Can you make a light?”

Fird grunted, and a soft red glow filled the cavern. They went through the first, large chamber, and Savn led the way unerringly into the correct passage, and another large chamber. Here, even though Savn half expected it, he was startled by the flapping of wings as the jhereg appeared before him. Fird jumped, and his sorcerous light wavered for a moment as Savn said, “It’s all right, they won’t hurt us.” Fird didn’t appear convinced, but watched the jhereg closely and kept a short knife in his hand.

The jhereg flew around the opening for a moment, then disappeared.

“Is Easterner magic to tame carrion-eaters?” asked Fird.

“I guess,” said Savn.

Fird’s mouth twitched. “Then is onward.”

They continued, Fird ducking to traverse corridors that Savn was able to walk through upright, until they saw the flickering glow of the torches.

Savn called out, “Vlad? It’s Savn. Fird, the fruit-seller, is with me.”

There was a rustling sound ahead, and in the dim light Savn was able to make out Vlad turning his head. “Good,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“How are you feeling?”

“Weak. But a little better, I think.”

“Great.”

“Sorry I missed our appointment, Fird. Glad you got the note.”

Fird was watching Vlad carefully. He said, “Note is arrived, but the wondering is from its means of travel.”

“Does it matter?”

“Magic is that of the Easterner, is to wonder what else you is to have done or will do?”

“For one thing,” said Vlad. “Give you a certain amount of gold, in exchange for answering some questions. Have you been to—” He paused and looked at Savn.

“Would you like me to leave?”

“Please,” said Vlad. “I’m sorry, but I’d rather this not be overheard.”

Savn shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t care, and, taking one of the burning torches, wandered back out of the cave. To his surprise, the larger of the jhereg accompanied him. He was even more surprised to realize that this no longer bothered him. Finding a comfortable-looking spot beneath a tree just outside the cave, he put out the torch and settled down with his back against the trunk. The jhereg perched on a low branch of the same tree.

Savn looked up at it, and it looked back, as if waiting for Savn to start the conversation. “I would like to know,” said Savn obligingly, “what they’re talking about in there.”

The jhereg stared at him with unblinking, reptilian eyes.

“And while we’re on the subject,” he continued, “I’d like to know how close the searchers are getting to this cave. If I knew how long we had, I—well, I don’t know what I’d do. But I’d like to know.

“And, since I’m asking questions, just what did Vlad do to Mae and Pae? I know, I know. He put a spell on them.”

He frowned and studied the ground between his feet. He’d known since last night that Vlad had enchanted them, but it seemed to take a long time for the fact to make its way into his bones. There was something so evil about doing such a thing—about magically clouding someone’s eyes, muffling his thoughts—that he couldn’t really think of it as something done by the Easterner lying helpless a hundred yards into the hill.

And the thought that, even now, Mae and Pae were under the influence of whatever spell Vlad had cast was utterly foreign to his emotions; he didn’t know how to look at it. The anger that ought to be his natural response simply wouldn’t appear.

He tried to imagine himself confronting the half-dead Vlad and telling him off for it, but his imagination failed. He thought about doing nothing until Vlad felt better, but that didn’t seem right either.

“What would you do?” he asked the jhereg.

It ducked its head under its wing and cleaned itself, then seemed to settle more fully onto the branch and looked around with, Savn imagined, an expression of mild curiosity.

“So, what am I waiting for? I’m not going to ask him about Mae and Pae. Why am I here? In case he has a relapse? But am I going to heal him after what he did? Of course I am; I can’t let him die.”

He stared at the jhereg, who seemed completely uninterested in his problems. He scowled at it. “What I should do is abandon Vlad and see what I can do for Mae and Pae. Sure. Good idea. But what can I do for them? They’ve been enchanted; I don’t know anything about enchantments.”

He stopped, feeling his eyes grow wide. “But Bless does. Bless knows all about curses of the gods, and whatever this Easterner did, it can’t be that bad. That’s it. Vlad can take care of himself; I have to find Bless.”

And, with no more reflection or questions, he stood and dashed off toward town.

Twilight made the outlines of the livery stable indistinct as Savn came up over the top of the hill. He stopped and surveyed the city. There were a few people on the outskirts, talking, as there always were; Savn could make out Tif from her posture and Boarder from his hair, and there were others he didn’t yet recognize. At the far end a few people moved about, but they were too far away to identify. However, he was certain he saw a two-horse wagon not far from Speaker’s, and Bless was one of the few (as was Savn’s family) who drove two horses.

He started down the hill, and couldn’t help but notice how the gossips outside of Feeder’s stopped talking and watched him pass. It was creepy. But they didn’t say anything to him, and he didn’t see any of his friends.

Bless and On came out of Speaker’s house and climbed into the wagon. Savn ran up to them, waving. Bless saw him, checked the horses, and waited. Ori looked at him with mild curiosity. Bless’s face was round, his eyes were very widely set, and the look on his face seemed suspi—

cious, as if he wasn’t certain Savn was doing what he was supposed to do.

“The evening’s rain to you, sir.”

“And to you, young man. Where have you been this last day?”

“Where have I been, sir?”

“Yes, the whole town has gathered to look for this Easterner, and your absence was noticed.”

“I didn’t know. Why were you looking for him, sir?”

“That is none of your concern, young man. You should be glad that it is I and not Speaker who wants to know, or you can be sure the questions would be rougher in the asking and quicker in the answering.”

“Yes, sir.” Savn didn’t look at Ori, but he was aware of him there, watching, and it made Savn angry and uncomfortable.

“So where were you?” asked Bless.

Savn heard himself answer, “I was looking for him, too.”

“You were?”

“Yes, sir. I saw what happened, and he was hurt, and I thought he might need physicking, and—”

“Physicking!” thundered Bless. “Of all the nerve! This Easterner killed—actually killed—three of His Lordship’s men-at-arms, and you want to physick him?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“I should hope so! He has already done more evil here than you can imagine.”

“I know, sir. That’s what I wanted to ask you about.”

That seemed to catch Bless up short. “Eh? Is there something I don’t know about?”

“Yes, sir. It’s Mae and Pae.”

“Well? What about them?”

“I wonder if you could ... that is, I think they’ve been enchanted.”

Bless made a peculiar sound with his mouth and nose. “Enchanted?” he said. “And by whom?”

“By Vlad, the Easterner.”

“Oh, he’s a wizard, is he?”

“No, sir, a witch.”

“Rubbish,” said Bless. “A witch can’t do anything to you unless you believe he can. Have you spoken to Master Wag about this? What does he say about witches?”

“The same as you, sir, only—”

“Well, there you have it.”

“But—”

Bless sighed. “Very well. What makes you think this witch has done something to them?”

“They’ve been acting funny. I mean, really funny.”

Bless sniffed. “Maybe they’re concerned about you.”

“That’s just it. They’re not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they don’t seem to care what I do.”

“Eh? That’s the first time I’ve heard that complaint from a young man. What did you do that they didn’t care about?”

Savn realized that he was in dangerous waters. He wanted to say enough to convince Bless to do something, but not so much that Bless would know what he’d been up to.

“Well, I stayed out playing, and they didn’t do anything about it. They didn’t seem to even notice.”

“I see. And because of this you think they’re enchanted?”

“Well, yes. If you’d seen the way they’ve been acting—”

“I saw them two days past, and they seemed quite fine to me.”

“It hadn’t happened yet.”

“Young man, I believe that you are suffering from a disease called bad conscience. Instead of seeing mysterious enchantments everywhere, I’d recommend you start doing what you should be doing, and I suspect everything will be fine.”

“But—”

“But at the moment, I’ve got bigger problems. While this Easterner may not be casting spells on everyone’s mother, he is out there somewhere, and I must see to it that he is found before he does any more damage. Now be on your way.”

Without waiting for Savn’s answer, Bless motioned for Ori to drive off. Savn clenched his fists with frustration. Why did everyone only see what he wanted to?

Savn looked around to make sure he hadn’t attracted any attention, and saw, to his dismay, Lan and Tuk walking by on the opposite side of the street, staring at him. They looked away when he stared back, which was almost worse than if they’d tried to beat him up again.

He turned and headed for home. Maybe Polyi would say something that would cheer him up.

The walk home was long, and it was nearly dark by the time he got there. Mae and Pae were still busy, and when they bid him a good day, it seemed that they were even further away than they had been.

Savn wondered if perhaps he was exaggerating their condition to himself. He couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think so.

Polyi was in the house, and her first words were, “Are they sick, Savn?”

He thought about giving her an honest answer, but couldn’t make himself do it. He said, “I don’t know what’s wrong, Polyi. I just don’t know.”

“Should we ask someone?”

“Who?”

“Well, Master Wag, maybe?”

“I don’t think they’re sick.”

“Well somethings wrong with them.”

Savn sighed. “Yes, I know. Let me think about it.”

“What good will thinking about it do? We have to—”

“I know, we have to do something. But I don’t know—What in the world was that?” There had come some sort of rapping, scraping sound from the roof.

Polyi rushed out the door, Savn right at her heels. They turned and looked up at the roof. Polyi screamed. Savn, though he had become used to such things, felt very much like doing the same.

* * *

For an hour or so after the large soft one left, the Provider seemed fine, and even after that, she couldn’t really tell that something was wrong, but her lover began to grow agitated, then worried, and finally almost frantic. He began to fly around, nearly hurting himself against the cave walls.

She came to understand that the Provider was not well, and she wondered if the large soft one had done something to him, and if she should track him down and kill him. No, she was told, it had nothing to do with that one, it had to do with how he had gotten hurt before.

This puzzled her, because it seemed that one would either be injured or healthy; the Provider had been injured and was now getting healthy again, so how could the same injury account for two illnesses? But her lover was in no mood to explain such things, so she didn’t ask.

As he grew more frantic, however, she began to catch his mood. Desperate to do something that would alleviate his misery, she at last suggested that, if he had been cured before by something one of the Provider’s species had done, couldn’t it happen again?

Her lover calmed down at this suggestion, only to become angry again, this time at himself, because he seemed to feel he ought to have thought of that before. But he seemed disinclined to waste too much time with such thoughts; almost at once he turned and flew out of the cave.

She had nothing better to do, so she followed.

Chapter Fourteen

I will not marry a sly intendant,

I will not marry a sly intendant,

I’d make money and he would spend it.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

Polyi clutched Savn’s arm and stared. The day’s light was nearly gone but there was enough to see, without possibility of error, what was sitting on the roof. Even to Savn, there was something horribly invasive in the jhereg’s perching on his own house; whatever they were, and however friendly they were, they didn’t belong here.

It was only much later that it struck Savn as odd that neither he nor Polyi thought of calling Mae and Pae, which would have been their automatic reaction only three days before.

At last Polyi said in a whisper, “What are they doing?”

“Watching us.”

“I can see that, chag-brain. I mean why are they watching us.”

“I don’t know.”

Savn stared back at them, refusing to be intimidated. That there might actually be intelligence behind those quick, tiny eyes made it worse. Well, he wanted to say. What do you want with me?

Could Vlad have sent them?

Maybe. But, if so, why not give them a note, like he gave to Fird?

Perhaps because he couldn’t.

But, if he couldn’t, how could he have sent the jhereg?

Savn scowled. He just didn’t know enough about Vlad’s relationship with these things. It was a matter of witchcraft, and—

Witchcraft.

Just like the spell he’d put on Mae and Pae.

He broke free of Polyi, turned, and walked away from the house. Behind him, Polyi was asking something, but he didn’t really hear her.

Vlad was in trouble, maybe dying; that was the only possible explanation.

Vlad had, for whatever reason, laid enchantments on Mae and Pae.

Vlad needed help.

Vlad didn’t deserve help.

Savn slammed back into the house and got a small cooking pot, two wooden bowls, a little barley (Vlad could pay for that at least, and he’d better!), and some three-season herb, which was another thing Master Wag had recommended against fever.

Polyi came back in. “Where are you going?”

“Vlad’s gotten sick again,” he growled.

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

He rolled up his sleeping furs and tied them into a bundle.

“Aren’t you coming back?” said Polyi.

“Yes, I’m coming back, I just don’t know when.”

Prairiesong grew next to the road; he could pick some ; on the way. What else did he need?

“What do you mean, you don’t know when?”

“I’m going to stay with Vlad until he’s well, or until he dies, or until they find us. And, when he’s well, I’m going to make him—I’m going to talk to him about some things.”

He carefully wrapped Pae’s best kitchen knife in a towel and stowed it among his furs.

“But,” said Polyi, “that could take—”

“I know.”

“Mae and Pae—”

“Won’t even notice.”

Polyi shut up. Savn continued to pack as quickly as possible, ending up with one large roll that fit over his shoulder and a light sack that he could carry.

“I’m going with you,” announced Polyi.

Savn looked at her in the light of the stove. Her hair, which always gave her trouble, looked completely disorganized; her thin brows were drawn together in a line, and her mouth was set in an expression that he’d often seen before and thought of as stubborn; now it looked determined. He wasn’t certain what the difference was, but he knew it was there.

“Of course you are,” he said. “Hurry up and get ready. We have to take the long way around, and I don’t want to waste any time.”

The two jhereg shadowed them as they walked. It was too dark to see them, but Savn and Polyi heard the occasional thwp thwp of their wings, which made Savn nervous, though he didn’t mention it. Polyi didn’t mention it, either. In fact, Polyi didn’t say anything at all, though a couple of times Savn tried, halfheartedly, to engage in her conversation. The only thing she said was, “How are we going to see in the cave? It’s bad enough out here.”

“I left a torch just outside; maybe we can find it.” Their progress through the woods was very slow. There was no light at all save for the diffuse glow from the sky and the faraway beacons from His Lordship’s manor house, which, faint as it was, got fainter as they went further from Manor Road and into the woods above Bigcliff. Savn was afraid they would miss the path altogether and step off the cliff itself. He made Polyi take hold of his arm, and he went very slowly, feeling for low branches with his free hand and exposed roots with his feet.

“I’m glad you came along,” he said. “This would be even scarier alone.”

Polyi didn’t answer.

Soon the light from the manor house was gone entirely, and Savn was afraid he’d lose his sense of direction and wander the woods all night, but shortly thereafter they emerged, and he realized that the soft glow from the sky was enough to allow him to pick his way with care down the path to the caves.

Finding the torch proved difficult indeed, and he might not have managed it if he hadn’t bumped into the tree he’d been leaning against earlier. He scraped his cheek slightly, but was otherwise unhurt, and by feeling around at the tree’s base, discovered the torch he’d brought out of the cave.

It was only then, with the unlit torch in his hand, that he realized that it was chilly. “Are you cold?” he asked Polyi.

“Yes,” she said, “but I’m all right. Hurry up and light the torch so we can go.”

While Polyi waited by the cave mouth, Savn pushed together a pile of leaves that weren’t too damp and succeeded in making a fire. The glow hurt his eyes so much, he had to look away while igniting the torch, and once he’d managed to do so, he had to look away from both while he stamped out the fire. When he’d done this, he hesitated, wanting to wait until his eyes adjusted to the light, but not wanting to remain outside the cave where the light could be observed.

As he stood, undecided, Polyi said, “Come on, Savn,” so he squinted as best he could and headed into the cave. The jhereg, visible now in the torchlight, stayed with them, as if to be certain they completed their journey.

At last they reached the chamber where Vlad lay. Savn put the torch in the wall, lit another from the stack on the floor, brought it over to the Easterner, and gasped.

“Savn, what’s wro—”

“Hand me the sack, Polyi. Thanks. Now, find the mortar and pestle. Quick.”

“Where? Oh, here it is.”

Savn dumped the contents of the sack on the floor, and found the prairiesong. “Crush this up with some water,” he said.

“Where’s the water?”

“I don’t know, look around. Wait, in the wineskin, against the wall, below the torch. No, the brown wineskin; that one still has wine. Yes.”

“How much water?”

“After you’ve crushed the prairiesong, fill the bowl. Wait, give me the water first.”

Savn inspected Vlad, looking at each wound carefully, then got a cloth wet and put it around Vlad’s head. Then he began fanning him.

“What happened?” said Polyi.

“The Imps of Fever have entered his body, but I don’t know how. His wound isn’t infected.”

“What do we do?”

“Have you mixed the prairiesong yet?”

“Yes.”

“Then we will help him drink it.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll get the fire started again. Is there any wood left?”

“Not much.”

“After he’s had the prairiesong, take a torch with you and get some wood. Don’t stay out there any longer then you have to. Be careful not to be seen.”

“All right. What will we do when we’ve got the fire going?”

“We will sit here with him, keeping him cool, chanting the charms against fever, and feeding him water with prairiesong until his fever breaks.”

“What if it doesn’t break?”

“It will,” said Savn.

“But what if it doesn’t?”

“It will. Here. I’ll hold his head, you open his lips and pour. Slowly, we don’t want to spill any.”

They helped the Easterner drink. He was only semiconscious, but he was able to swallow normally. His skin was still very hot. Savn wiped Vlad’s forehead again, while Polyi got the firewood. He reviewed the chants against fever, while he ground up more prairiesong and set it aside, then began fanning Vlad. I’ll have to send Polyi out for more water, he thought, but that can wait until the fire’s going.

He began the chant clumsily. It was difficult to perform the invocation with the proper rhythm while fanning Vlad, until he managed to adjust his fanning to the rhythm of the incantation. After that it was easier.

Polyi returned with the firewood, and built up the fire, got more water, then sat down next to Savn. “How is he?”

“He burns,” said Savn, his voice already hoarse. “Come, listen to the chant so you can help me with it. I’ll fan him, you make sure the cloth on his forehead stays damp, and we’ll perform the healing together.”

“All right,” said Polyi.

Vlad moaned softly then, and mumbled something. Polyi made a soft exclamation. Savn glanced at her and said, “We do not pay attention to the ravings of those under our care.” Then he resumed chanting. Presently his sister joined him.

Several hours later, when both of their voices were raw and sore, when Savn felt more exhausted than he ever had in his life, when he was afraid that his arm lacked the strength to lift up Vlad’s head one more time, he felt his forehead and found it was cool to the touch.

“You can stop, Polyi,” he said.

She kept chanting, stumbling a little, slowing down, then at last ran down like a spinning doll at the end of its string. She looked at him blankly, as if unable to comprehend the silence. Perhaps they said something to each other—Savn later had a memory that they exchanged a hug, but he was never certain. All he knew was that within a minute after the sudden silence boomed through the cave, he was sound asleep.

When Savn awoke, the first thing he did was stifle a cry and look at Vlad. Then he realized that he’d only dreamed that he’d fallen asleep while Vlad’s life was still at stake, and he relaxed. The Easterner slept, but his color looked good and his forehead felt cool, though perhaps slightly clammy.

The next thing he did was make sure Polyi was all right. She was still asleep (or, for all he knew, asleep again). He badly wished for tea. Then he noticed a dead norska lying by the fire. He looked at the two jhereg who stood over it, either guarding it or showing off, and said, “Now, I suppose, you’re going to want me to skin it and cook it, aren’t you? Haven’t we been through this already? Fortunately for you, I have a stewpot, because I wouldn’t want to risk the smell of roasting it again.”

The smaller of the jhereg hopped over to him, jumped coolly onto his arm, and licked his ear. Savn wondered why this didn’t bother him, and, moreover, how the jhereg knew it wouldn’t bother him.

He built up the fire, skinned the norska, and put it in the pot with water and more three-season herb than probably ought to go in. That was all right; it might make the stew a little sweet, but it should still be edible. The smell woke up Polyi, and, at almost the same time, Vlad.

Savn realized the Easterner was awake when the two jhereg suddenly stopped nibbling at the norska skin and flew over to land next to his face. Savn followed them, knelt down, and said, “How are you?”

Vlad blinked, cleared his throat, and said, “What did I say this time?”

“I have no idea,” said Savn. “You sound stronger than you did yesterday.”

“Do I? I think I feel a little better, too. How odd.”

“Did Fird do something to you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he could have done anything I wouldn’t have noticed, and he doesn’t seem to be the type that would try anything, anyway. No, I think it just happened.”

“You do sound better.”

“Thanks. I really didn’t say anything?”

“I wasn’t paying attention. What was Fird doing here, anyway?”

“Giving me some information I’d paid him to find out.”

“Oh. I hope it was worth it.” .

Vlad laughed, weakly. “Oh, yes. It was worth it.”

Savn grunted and stirred the stew, spilling some, which made the fire hiss, and thick smoke curled up into his eyes. He waved it away and stepped back. He added a little wine, Figuring it couldn’t hurt anything and remembering Vlad’s comments last time.

He glanced back at Vlad, who had struggled to a sitting position on his own, and was leaning against the wall, breathing heavily, his eyes closed.

“You’re going to make it,” said Savn quietly.

“Eh?” said Vlad.

“Nothing. Rest now and I’ll wake you when the food’s ready.”

“Thanks, but I want to be awake. I need to think.”

“Are you afraid they’ll find you?” He didn’t think the stew sinelled as strongly as the roasted norska had, and hoped that the smell wouldn’t manage to sneak its way out of the cave.

“Are they still looking?” asked Vlad.

“Yes.”

“Hmmm. Well, that’s part of it. If they found me now I wouldn’t be able to give them much sport. But even if they don’t find me, I have to figure out what to do.”

“About what?”

“About Loraan, of course. Excuse me, I mean Baron Smallcliff.”

“Oh.”

Eventually the food was ready. Polyi splashed water on her face, visited the cave they’d designated as a privy, and rejoined them, still looking groggy. They ate in silence, not even commenting on the quality of the stew, which Savn thought was fine (although, as he had feared, a bit sweet), even if it was not as exciting as the roasted norska had been the first time.

They had to share bowls, since Savn had only thought to bring two, but they finished every morsel. When they had given the bones and scraps to the jhereg, Vlad rested for a while. Savn thought he was looking better and better, but resolved not to leave him unattended until he was certain there would not be another relapse.

Polyi, who, as usual, had been the last to finish eating, watched Vlad as he rested. Savn wondered what she was thinking about, a question which was answered when she suddenly said, “What did you mean about not wanting to work again?”

Vlad opened his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“When you were feverish, you said you never wanted to work again, and you wouldn’t, and swore by Verra. Or maybe at Verra, I couldn’t tell.”

Vlad looked reproachfully at Savn, who said, “When did he say that, Polyi?”

“While we were chanting.”

Savn looked at Vlad. “I didn’t notice,” he said.

“I meant,” said Vlad, “that, basically, I’m a pretty lazy fellow. What else did I say?” The Easterner was staring at Polyi, and Savn felt the intensity of that stare.

“Stop it,” he said.

Vlad turned to him. “Excuse me?”

“I said, stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Whatever you were about to do to her.”

The Easterner seemed genuinely confused. “I wasn’t about to do anything to her; what are you talking about?”

“You were about to cast a spell on her.”

“No, I wasn’t. What makes you think I was?”

“I saw how you were looking at her, and I know what you did to Mae and Pae.”

“Oh,” said Vlad softly. His features were still and silent; only his eyes seemed troubled as he looked at Savn.

“What?” cried Polyi, rising to her feet.

Damn my big mouth, thought Savn. He stepped between her and Vlad and said, “Wait—”

“What did he do to them?”

“How did you know?” said Vlad quietly.

Savn ignored him, gripped his sister’s shoulders and said, “Polyi, please—”

“How long have you known?” said Polyi.

“I guessed yesterday, when we went home, but I wasn’t certain.”

She tried to twist free, but Savn was stronger. He said, “Wait, Polyi. Let us at least listen to what he has to say—”

Vlad, abruptly, started laughing. Polyi stopped struggling and stared at him. Savn did the same. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I’m almost tempted,” said Vlad, still laughing, “to tell you to let her go. After everything I’ve done, the idea of falling at last to the wrath of a Teckla girl appeals to my sense of irony. And right now, she could do it. At least,” he added, sobering suddenly, “it wouldn’t be Morganti.”

Savn felt his stomach turn at the word. At the same time, he noticed that the two jhereg were watching Polyi with, it seemed, great intensity, and he remembered that they were poisonous—it was certainly best that Polyi be kept from attacking Vlad, even if Vlad was, as he claimed, “almost tempted.”

The Easterner continued. “In any case, I wasn’t about to put a spell on your sister. I wasn’t doing anything except, maybe, trying to intimidate her a little.”

“Why should I believe you?” said Savn.

“Why indeed?” said Vlad. “At any rate, I haven’t denied what I did to your Mae and Pae.”

“No, but you’ve lied about everything else.” Vlad shook his head. “Very little, in fact,” he said. “I’ve mostly refused to answer because I really don’t like lying to you. Although I’m willing to do so, if it will preserve my life and my soul.”

His voice hardened as he said this, but Savn refused to be put off by it. “How did putting a spell on Mae and Pae help preserve your life?”

Vlad sighed and looked away. “I’m not sure it did,” he said eventually. “I was being careful. How could you tell there was a spell on them? And, for that matter, how did you know it was me?”

Savn snorted. “Who else could it have been? And it wasn’t very difficult to see they’d been enchanted. They’ve been acting like they’re living in a dream-world. They haven’t seemed to care what Polyi and I do. They—”

“I see,” said Vlad. “I overdid it, apparently.”

“What were you trying to do?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He looked at Polyi, who hesitated, then sat down and looked at the Easterner expectantly.

Vlad took a deep breath and nodded. “I thought I might need your help,” he said. “And, in fact, I did, though not the way I had anticipated.” He smiled a little, looking down at himself as if to inspect Savn’s work.

“How had you anticipated you’d need my help?”

Vlad shrugged. “Once I knew what had happened to Reins, I thought I might need the eyes, ears, and memory of a local. And I did, but it didn’t turn out to be you, because I found Sara and Fird.”

Polyi said, “What does that have to do with putting a spell on Mae and Pae?”

Vlad sat up, resting his back against the stone wall. He spread his hands. “If I wanted you to look around for me, I couldn’t have you disturbed by parents wanting to know where you were and what you were doing. It wasn’t supposed to be that strong, however.”

Savn nodded. “You did it when you brought me home that night, didn’t you?”

“That was when I triggered it, you might say, but I’d already set it up.”

“How? You weren’t anywhere near them before that.”

“Yes.” Vlad sighed. “Remember that green stone I gave you?”

“What green stone?”

“Remember when we met?”

“Sure. On Manor Road, by the Curving Stone.”

“Yes. I gave you something.”

“I don’t remember ... Wait. Yes. You said it was the custom of your land—” He broke off suddenly. “Why had I forgotten that? What did you do to me?”

Vlad winced, then looked away. After a moment he shook his head, as if to himself. “Not very much, actually,” he said. “You can blame my friends here”—he gestured at the jhereg on the ground, who were still watching Polyi and Savn—”for not keeping good watch. You saw me doing something I didn’t want known, so I gave you that stone, and through it, I suggested that you not talk about me, and that you not remember the stone. And I used the stone to work the other spells, the ones you noticed. When I took you home that night, I’d already prepared—”

Savn stared. “You’ve been putting spells everywhere, haven’t you?”

“It may seem like that—”

“What did you do to Polyi?” he said fiercely, ready to strangle the Easterner, jhereg or no.

“Nothing,” said Vlad. “But, as I said, I did use the stone to cast a spell on your parents, through you, that would allow you to be more useful to me. So if you’re looking for a grievance, you have one.”

Savn spat, then glared at the Easterner. Vlad met his eyes calmly.

“Well, I’ve been useful, haven’t I?” said Savn bitterly. “I’ve saved your life—”

“I know.”

More implications began to sink in. He said, “I assume you made me physick you? That was why I found you so easily?”

“No,” said Vlad.

“What do you mean, No?”

Vlad adjusted his position against the wall. “I was unconscious, and even if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that you’d be able to heal me.” He paused. “How did you find me?”

“I remembered what you said about spells to make tele-ports easier, and I remembered what you’d been doing in the road, and I thought about how quickly you’d tele-ported, and I just put it together.”

Vlad gave one of his characteristic laughs—a small chuckle that never left his chest. “Virtue, I’ve been told, is its own reward.”

“What does that mean?”

“I almost blocked out your memory of what I’d been doing, but I didn’t want to do more to your memories than I had to.”

“That’s bleeding noble of you,” said Savn.

“So to speak,” said Vlad.

“How can you do things like that?” said Polyi, in a tone more curious than reproachful.

“I’ll do what I have to, to save my life,” said Vlad, giving her the briefest of glares. “Who wouldn’t?”

“I wouldn’t,” said Polyi firmly. “Not if to save my life I had to go into people’s heads and change them. That’s evil. It’s better to just kill them.”

“Maybe it is,” said Vlad. “But if they’re alive, they can change again, and perhaps recover. If they’re dead, it’s all over.”

“But—”

“But yes, I know, altering someone’s mind is an ugly thing to do. Don’t think I don’t know it. But don’t think that you can pretend these questions are easy, because they aren’t, and anyone who says they are is lying.”

“You’d know a lot about lying, wouldn’t you?” said Savn.

“Yes,” said Vlad. “I’ve done a great deal of it. Also killing. Also, tricking people into doing what I wanted them to do. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of any of this—I do what I must.”

“It sounds,” said Polyi, “like you’ll do anything to anyone, as long as it’s useful to you.”

Vlad took a deep breath, as if he was about to shout at her, then let it out slowly. “You may be right,” he said.

“Is that why you taught me witchcraft?” said Savn. “Because you thought it would be useful to you?”

Once again, the chuckle. “No.” Vlad shook his head and closed his eyes. Savn waited. After a moment, the Easterner sighed. “I guess, what with one thing and another, I owe you the truth.”

Savn nodded, but didn’t say anything. He felt Polyi looking at him, but she, too, waited.

Vlad said, “The first time, here in this spot, I didn’t teach you anything. I just put you to sleep for a while so I could explore.”

“I don’t understand. Why did you bother putting me to sleep?”

Vlad turned his palms up. “I didn’t want your company while I explored.”

“Then why have me along at all?”

“You knew where this place was,” he said, gesturing at the cave around them.

“This place? I don’t understand.”

“I knew there had to be an underground waterway, and Dark Water can be useful against the undead, and I was looking for a way into Loraan’s manor house. I thought you might know how to find it, so I—”

“So you asked me leading questions until I found it for you.”

“Yes,” said Vlad. “That’s right.” He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, his face was, once more, without expression.

“And the second time you pretended to teach me witchcraft? What was that about? That time, you even had me convinced you’d taught me something.”

“I did. That time there was no trickery, Savn. I taught you because you wanted to know, and because I’d started to like you. I hate to sound trite, but you remind me of myself. Take that for what it’s worth.”

“I will,” said Savn, hearing the bitterness in his own voice. Then he said, “Do you remember when we were talking about Athyra?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember how you said those who explore the world see people as objects, and mystics act like people don’t really exist at all?”

“Yes,” said Vlad. And, “Oh.”

He looked down, and chewed on his lower lip. No one said anything, because there seemed to be nothing more to say.

Chapter Fifteen

I will not marry an acrobat,

I will not marry an acrobat,

He’d always think that I’m too fat.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

At last Vlad broke the silence. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe I’m no better than your Baron. But all I know is that he’s killed someone who once helped me. And years ago he nearly destroyed a close friend of mine. And now he is cooperating with a Jhereg assassin who plans to kill me—”

It took a moment before Savn realized that when Vlad said Jhereg he meant the House, not the animals. Then Savn gasped. “What?”

“That’s what Fird told me, though I’d already guessed it. There’s an assassin staying with Baron Smallcliff at the manor house, and I don’t think he’s here because he likes linseed-flavored wine. The Baron is cooperating with the Jhereg to assassinate me.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Savn.

Vlad shrugged.

“Why would he do that?” said Savn.

“They both hate me; it makes sense that they’d work together.”

“The Jhereg hates you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Why?”

“I picked an unfortunate method of terminating my relationship with them.”

“What do you ... you mean, you’re a Jhereg?”

“I used to be.”

“What did you do?”

Vlad took a deep breath and met Savn’s eyes. “I killed people. For money.”

Savn stared at him, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I reached a point where I couldn’t do it anymore, and I left. In the process, I killed someone important, and I threatened the House representative to the Empire—sort of like your Speaker. So now they want to kill me. I can’t really blame them, but I’m hardly going to cooperate, am I?”

“I don’t believe you,” said Savn.

“Then I doubt I can convince you. But don’t you wonder why the Baron attacked me?”

“Because you killed Reins—or because he thought you did.”

“Is that the way justice usually works around here? If someone is suspected of a crime, your Baron Smallcliff sends his soldiers to kill them? You’ll notice they made no effort to arrest me.”

“I don’t know,” said Savn. “I never said I understood everything. But I know His Lordship wouldn’t hire an assassin.”

“Not hire,” said Vlad. “Merely help.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“Why is it that, just at the time I happen to be coming by, Loraan decides to leave his home and take up residence in his manor house, which just happens to be near the place I’m passing by? You think this has nothing to do with me?”

“I don’t know.”

“And then Reins dies, which is enough to keep me here—”

“I don’t believe you.”

Vlad sighed and shook his head. “Why does everyone only see what he wants to?”

Savn twitched, started to speak, then realized he had no answer. He sat on the floor of the cave, looking down.

At length, Vlad broke the silence. “What are you going to do?” he said.

“About what?” said Savn.

“I’d like to know if you plan to tell your Baron where I am, or perhaps the townspeople.”

“Oh. Well, you never told me your plans; why should I tell you mine?”

Vlad chuckled. “Well taken. Whatever you decide, you should probably get home soon.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I would think,” said Vlad, “that your Maener and Paener would be getting worried by now.” Savn looked at him closely. “Is it that easy?”

“To undo? Yes. The spell, at any rate, is easy to undo. And there shouldn’t be any direct aftereffects.”

“What do you mean, ‘direct’?”

“I mean that they’ll probably figure out that they’ve been under a spell. I don’t know what that will do to them. Maybe nothing.”

Savn glanced at Polyi, who was staring at the ground and frowning.

“Do you want to go home?” Savn asked her.

She looked up. “Do you?”

“Not right now. I want to stay for a bit and—”

“See how it comes out?” said Vlad ironically.

Savn shrugged and asked Vlad, “What do you intend to do?”

“I’m not sure. It depends how much time I have. If I had to teleport right now, I might be able to. Then again, I might not. I’d rather not have to. If I can get a couple of days to recover, I’ll have the choice of getting out of here to someplace safer. If, on the other hand, I’m found, I’ll have to try to escape as best I can.”

“So your intention is to get out?”

“Oh, no. That’s only if I have no choice. You know very well what I want to do.”

“You’re crazy,” said Polyi. “You can’t kill His Lordship! No one can.”

Vlad shook his head. “I’m going to kill him. The only questions are when and how. If I can’t do it now, I’ll have to wait for a better time. But now would be best. I’d like to have it over and done with.”

“Heh,” said Polyi. “You won’t feel that way when it is over and done with.”

Savn knelt down next to Vlad and felt his forehead. He was relieved to find that it was still cool, though his face seemed a trifle flushed. Vlad watched him intently.

“How do you feel?” said Savn.

“Tired. Weak. Not bad other than that.”

“You should rest.”

“I doubt I can,” said Vlad. “There’s too much on my mind.”

Savn was suddenly and comically reminded of how he would explain to Maener that he was too excited about Pudding Morn to go to sleep, and how she would smile and tell him that he should just rest his eyes then, and how he would fall asleep. He said, “That’s all right, just close your eyes and—”

Vlad laughed. “Very good, Paener. I get the idea. Wake me if they come to kill me.”

He slid over to his blankets, threw one arm over his eyes, and, as far as Savn could tell, went instantly to sleep.

They watched him sleep for an hour or two; then Savn decided they should talk. He whispered to Polyi, and she agreed, so he took a torch and guided her back through the cave until he was certain they were far enough away that Vlad couldn’t hear them.

“What should we do?” he said.

“I think we should go home,” said Polyi. “If Mae and Pae really are worried—”

“What will we tell them?”

“The truth,” said Polyi.

“Oh?”

She frowned. “Well, it isn’t our problem, is it? Savn, you heard him. Now we know he wants to kill His Lordship. I mean, we know he can’t, but what if he does?”

“Well,” said Savn. “What if he does?”

“We have to stop him, that’s all.”

“Do we?”

“You heard what he is. He’s an assassin. He kills people for money. He—”

“He used to be an assassin. And what about His Lordship?”

“You don’t believe all that stuff he said, do you?”

“I don’t know. Why would he admit to being an assassin, then lie about everything else? It doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s an Easterner; maybe it makes sense to him.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Why not? Do you know how they think?” Savn didn’t answer; in his mind, he kept hearing Vlad’s voice, echoing his own: Why do people only see what they want to? An unanswerable question, certainly. If Master Wag would even admit that it was true, he’d just say that it didn’t matter. And maybe it didn’t; maybe it was always going to be frustrating for someone who knew things that most people didn’t want to know. Maybe it was the way of the world.

But if what Vlad said was true, then, within a day, he’d been on both sides of the problem. He didn’t much like either one. How were you supposed to know what to believe, anyway?

“Come on, Polyi,” he said, and started back to the cavern where Vlad slept. “You want to stay here?”

“I don’t know, but right now I want to talk to Vlad.”

“You know,” said Polyi, “I’m getting tired of this cave.”

Savn was tempted to tell her that she was along by her own choice, but decided it wouldn’t be nice. He wedged the torch once more into the rocks and sat down next to Vlad. The jhereg, at first watching him carefully, seemed to relax and go back to resting. Funny how they knew he didn’t intend to hurt Vlad. Maybe they had some means of knowing the truth. Maybe they were the only beings in the world who knew what was really going on, and they were secretly laughing at everyone else.

He laughed at the thought, and Vlad’s eyes opened.

“What’s funny?” said Polyi.

“I’ve just had a revelation,” said Savn. “Truth is in the eyes of the jhereg.”

Vlad blinked and shook his head. “Water?” he croaked.

Savn got him some, and said, “How do you feel?”

“Better,” he said. He drank more water, then looked at Savn patiently.

“Vlad, how do you know what the truth is?”

The Easterner didn’t laugh. He considered for a moment, then said, “Help me sit up.”

Savn did so, then helped him to the wall, which he rested against for a few minutes, recovering his breath. To Savn’s eye, he seemed to have made some improvement.

“Very often,” said Vlad, “I learn what is true by trying something and having it fail.”

“Oh,” said Savn. “I know about that. Master Wag talks about learning from errors.”

“Yes. I don’t recommend it.”

“You don’t?”

“No. It’s far better not to make mistakes, at least when your life is on the line.”

“Well, yes.”

Vlad chewed his lower lip. “It’s not that I’ve never thought about it,” he said. “I have. That happens when you associate with philosophers. The trouble is, you get different answers depending on whether you really want to know, or if you just want to argue about it.”

“I don’t want to argue about it,” said Savn.

“I suspected that. That makes it harder.”

Polyi said, “Savn, what are you doing?”

Vlad answered for him. “He’s trying to make a very difficult decision.”

Polyi snorted. “Savn, you’re going to ask him how to decide whether you should turn him in? Well, that really makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“I think it does,” said Savn. He turned back to Vlad. “What were you saying?”

Vlad was frowning at the floor. He didn’t look up. “I wasn’t saying anything. I was thinking.”

“Well?”

Then he did look up, squinting at Savn. “Let’s start with this,” he said. “Suppose everyone you know says there’s no cave here. Is that the truth?”

“No.”

“Good. Not everyone would agree with you, but I do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Vlad thought for a moment longer, then suddenly shook his head. “There’s no easy answer. You learn things bit by bit, and you check everything by trying it out, and then sometimes you get a big piece of it all at once, and then you check that out. I know what your problem is. Everyone thinks that your Baron can’t be killed, and, furthermore, he’s a great guy, and here I am with a different story, and you don’t know who to believe. I understand the problem. Sorry, I can’t give you any answers.

“But,” he resumed suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to him, “I can point out a few things. First of all, the only reason you think he’s so wonderful is because you know people from Bigcliff, who have a real scum of a Dzurlord. So what makes your Baron so great is that you have someone horrible to compare him with. As I recall, you weren’t very impressed when you learned that I could have done worse things to you than I did, and you were right. As far as I’m concerned, saying someone could be much worse is not much of a recommendation.”

Savn shook his head. “But he’s never done anything to us.”

Vlad’s eyebrows twitched. “Doesn’t he come by and pick the best portion of your crop, and take it for himself?”

“Well of course, but that’s just—”

“I don’t want to argue it,” said Vlad. “There’s no point in talking about all of the things you take as the natural order of life that I don’t think are. But that’s part of the answer to your question, which is just to ask questions of everyone, and of yourself. Try to identify the assumptions you make, and see if they stand up. Master Wag, you said, scoffs at witchcraft, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why do you chant to drive fevers away? The incantations you use resemble witchcraft more than a little.”

“Maybe they do,” said Savn. “But I know witchcraft works, so why shouldn’t the chanting?”

“Sure,” said Vlad. “But how does Master Wag explain it?”

“Well, it’s because the Fever Imps—”

“How do you know there are Fever Imps at all?”

“Because the chanting works.”

“Fair enough. Why, then, do you also use herbs, and why go to such effort to keep me cool?”

“You need all those things.”

“Are you sure? Maybe the herbs would work by themselves. Maybe the chanting would work by itself. Maybe all I’d need is to be kept cool. How do you know?”

“Well, I assume, since it’s been done that way for years—”

“Don’t assume, find out.”

“You mean, I can’t know anything until I’ve proven it for myself?”

“Hmmm. No, not really. If someone learns something, and passes it on, you don’t have to go through everything he learned again.”

“But, then—”

“But you don’t have to accept it on faith, either.”

“Then what do you do?”

“You make certain you understand it; you understand it all the way to the bottom. And you test it. When you both understand why it is the way it is, and you’ve tried it out, then you can say you know it. Until then—”

“But can you ever really understand something?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Savn fell silent. Eventually, Vlad cleared his throat and said, “I’m afraid I haven’t helped you much.”

Savn looked up at his odd face, with the thick black hair down in front of his ears and above his thin lip, more dark hair falling in waves inelegantly to his shoulders, with wrinkles of age on his forehead where none should yet be. Savn wondered how many people he had killed, and how rich he had become doing it, and why he had stopped.

“No,” he said. “You’ve helped me a great deal.”

Vlad gave a terse nod.

Savn said, “Would you like to tell me what you’re going to do now?”

“What, before I know whether you plan to help me or betray me?”

“Haven’t you been asking me to trust you, in spite of all the reasons you’ve given me not to?”

“I suppose I have,” said Vlad.

“Well, then, why shouldn’t I ask you to trust me, in spite of those very same reasons?”

Vlad looked at him for what seemed to be a long time. Never before had Savn wished so much to know what someone’s thoughts were; he was very much aware of the two jhereg, sitting patiently at Vlad’s side, with their poison fangs barely concealed by their reptilian jaws. Then, abruptly, Vlad laughed. “Well taken. I can’t argue, so I concede. But what about you?” he added, looking at Polyi. She stared back at him, then turned to Savn. “Whatever you do, I’ll go along with it.”

“Are you sure?” said Savn. “Yes.”

Savn turned back to Vlad. “Well?” The Easterner nodded. “If you follow the waterway, you’ll find it seems to run into a wall. If you go under the wall, it splits into several streams, none of which has much water, and all of which end in identical walls that look natural. Some of these—four, as far as I can tell—actually lead into the basement of the manor house. They are probably sorcerously controlled.”

“Can you get past them?”

“Yes, given enough time.”

“How?”

“You mostly wear your way through with diligence, patience, and a chisel.”

“Can’t you knock it down with sorcery?”

“Not without alerting him; he’s very good.”

“Then why can’t he find you?”

“Because I’m very well protected against being found.”

“So is that what you’re going to do? Break through the wall and ... and murder him?”

“Not a chance. He may be expecting me to do that, he may not, but he’ll certainly be guarding against it. I might, however, make him think that’s what I’m doing. It’s the obvious way in.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ve got a few things going for me, but I haven’t figured out how to make them work.”

“What things?”

“The assassin. He’s not getting along with Loraan at all.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he’s been there for more than a week, and Loraan made that attack on me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Jhereg,” said Vlad, looking straight at Savn, “want me to be killed with a Morganti weapon. Loraan’s attacks were not bluffs—he tried to kill me and almost succeeded. He—”

“Wait a minute. Attacks?”

“Yes. There have been two so far.”

“I only know of the one at Tem’s house.”

“The other happened the day before. I got careless and allowed myself to be seen too close to his manor house, and he made a sorcerous attack on me.”

“And it failed?”

“I have,” said Vlad, “a few tricks up my sleeve. I was really sloppy in staying at Tem’s house long enough for them to find me. My only excuse is that it’s been some years now since I’ve had to worry about that sort of thing. In any case, neither attack would have been Morganti; neither would have satisfied the Jhereg. So my conclusion is that Loraan is just barely cooperating with them, and they are just barely cooperating with him. They need each other, because this is Loraan’s area and because the Jhereg have the expert assassins. But neither of them like it. That’s what I hope to use. I’m not certain how to go about it, though.”

“I see,” said Savn. “Have I answered your questions?”

“Yes.”

“Then, do you care to tell me what you’re going to do?”

“I won’t turn you in,” said Savn. That seemed to satisfy Vlad, who closed his eyes and breathed deeply, leaning against the wall. “You tire easily, don’t you?”

“I think,” he said, “that I’ll be able to begin healing myself in a day or two. After that, it shouldn’t be long.”

“So the idea is to keep you safe for two days.”

“More or less. Less, I hope.”

“Do you think this place is secure?” Vlad frowned, then looked at the jhereg, who rose and flew out of the cave. “Maybe,” said Vlad. “But, in any case, we will now be warned of anyone approaching, so, as long as they don’t put a teleport block up over the entire area, I’ll have a chance to get out.”

“A what over the area?”

“Never mind. Loraan would either have to know exactly where I was, or be willing to use a great deal of power to cover the entire area.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Skip it. I’m saying that whatever happens, at least we’ll be warned.”

Savn stared at the place where the jhereg had disappeared into the narrow corridor that accompanied the subterranean stream. “Yes,” he said. “At least we’ll be warned.”

* * *

Savn and Polyi cleaned up the cooking pot, which Savn put back into the bag. He carefully wrapped the good kitchen knife. They assisted Vlad once more to get to his blankets; he needed less help than he had before.

It didn’t seem to matter that outside the cave, which was already beginning to feel like another world, it was early afternoon; Polyi claimed to be tired, and so lay down among her furs, and soon began to breathe evenly. Savn lit fresh torches and tidied up the area. Was it Endweek again? If he were at home, would he be cleaning? What would Mae and Pae say when they saw him again? Were they really worried?

Could he trust anything Vlad said?

While Vlad and Polyi slept, Savn thought over all that Vlad had told him. What if the herbs were unnecessary to combat fever, and they’d just been used from the custom of years uncounted? What if any custom could be wrong? What if His Lordship was undead?

He considered truth and knowledge and trust, and responsibility, until they whirled around in his head empty of meanings, only occasionally coming to light on some real example of deceit, ignorance, betrayal, or neglect, which would give him some hint of understanding before vanishing once more into the whirlpool of half-understood platitudes and questionable wisdom.

He kept returning to one phrase the Easterner had let fall: “Don’t assume, find out.”

He thought about this very carefully, feeling the truth in the phrase, and asking himself if he was trusting the Easterner, or logic.

Even after he’d decided, he hesitated for some time before taking the obvious next step.

Savn stood at the Curving Stone for a long time, staring down the road that led to the door of His Lordship’s manor house, which was itself out of sight behind a curve in the road. A score of years before, he and his friends had played on the grounds, hidden from all the glass windows except the one in the highest dormer, enjoying the feeling of danger, though safe in the knowledge that the manor house was empty.

Now His Lordship was in residence, and now Savn, though he wasn’t certain what he was doing, was not playing. He walked on the road as if he belonged there, step by step, as if he were himself a visiting noble, although he had heard that these people tcleported instead of walking, even when they only needed to go ten or twenty miles.

The manor house came in sight—a wide, tall building, full of sharp angles. In the years since he had seen it up close, he’d forgotten how big it was, or else decided it was only the exaggeration of a child’s memory. Now he stared, remembering, taken again with the feeling that the magnificence of the house must reflect the power of he who dwelled within.

The roof looked like the edge of a scythe, with dormers on either side like wisps of straw. The brick of the house itself was pale green, and high on the front wall were wide windows made of glass—Savn could even see light creeping around the edges of the curtains inside. He strained his eyes, looking for movement. He looked for and eventually found the gully he had daringly played in so many years ago, as close to the house as one could get without being seen. There were glass windows on that side, too, but he remembered quite clearly that if you kept your head down you were only visible from the one lonely window high on the side.

Oddly enough, it was only then, looking at all the windows, that he realized it was becoming dark, and was surprised once more by how fast time went by in the cave. At that moment, more light began to glow around the far side of the house. He stopped where he was, and soon a servant appeared from around that side. Savn watched as the servant walked around the house using a long match to light lamps that were stuck onto the house at various points. When he was finished, the entire house was lit up as if it were burning.

When the servant was gone, Savn watched the house a little longer, then resumed his walk along the road, directly toward the house, and up to the large front door. He felt very much as he imagined a soldier would feel marching into battle, but this was another thought he didn’t care to examine closely.

He stood before the door and stared at it. It seemed like such a plain door to be part of His Lordship’s manor house—just wood, and it opened and closed like any other door, although, to be sure, it had a brass handle that looked too complicated for Savn to operate. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, opened them, and clapped.

Nothing happened.

He waited for what seemed like several hours, although in fact it was hardly more than a minute. Still, he felt his courage slipping away. He tapped his foot, then stopped, afraid someone would see.

Why didn’t someone come to the door?

Because he couldn’t be heard, of course; the door was too thick.

Well, then, how was someone supposed to get the attention of His Lordship’s servants?

He looked around, and eventually saw a long rope hanging down in front of the door. Without giving himself time to think, he gave it one long, hard pull, and almost screeched when he heard, from inside, a rattling sound as if several sticks or logs were rolling against each other.

His heart, which had been beating fast for some time, began to pound in earnest. He was, in fact, on the point of turning and bolting, when the door opened and he found himself looking up at a slight, sharp-featured man in the livery of Baron Smallcliff. After a moment, Savn recognized him as someone called Turi, one of His Lordship’s servants who occasionally came into town for supplies. Come to think of it, Turi had been doing so ever since Reins had quit—

He broke off the thought, and at the same time realized he was staring. He started to speak but had to clear his throat.

“Well?” said the servant, frowning sternly.

Savn managed to squeak out, “Your pardon, sir.”

“Mmmmph.”

Savn took a breath. “May I request an audience with His Lordship? My name is Savn, and I’m the son of Cwelli and Olani, and I—”

“What do you want to see His Lordship about, boy?” said Turi, now looking impassive and impenetrable.

“If it please His Lordship, about the Easterner.”

Turi slowly tilted his head like a confused dog, and simultaneously raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have information for His Lordship?”

“I ... that is—”

“Well, come in and I will see if His Lordship is available. Your name, you said, is Savn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you are a peasant?”

“I’m apprenticed,” he said.

“To whom?”

“To Master Wag, the physicker.”

At this Turi’s eyes grew very wide, and for a moment he seemed at a loss for words. Then he said, “Come in, come in, by all means.”

The inside of the house was even more magnificent than the outside, especially when it became clear to Savn that the room he stood in—which contained nothing but some hooks on the wall and another door opposite the one he’d come in—existed for no other purpose than as a place for people to wait and to hang up their cloaks.

“Wait here,” said the servant.

“Yes, sir,” said Savn as Turi went through the inner door, closing it behind him.

He stared awestruck at the fine, dark, polished wood, realizing that this one, unfurnished room must have cost His Lordship more than Savn’s entire house was worth. He was studying the elaborate carved brass handle on the inner door, trying to decide if there was a recognizable shape to it, when it turned and the door opened. He braced himself to face His Lordship, then relaxed when he saw it was Turi again.

“This way, boy,” said the servant.

“Yes, sir,” said Savn, and, though his knees felt weak, he followed Turi into a place of splendor greater than his mind could grasp. The walls seemed to shimmer, and were adorned with richly colored paintings. The furniture was huge and came in amazing variations, and Savn couldn’t imagine sitting on any of it. Bright light filled every corner of the room, glittering against objects of incomprehensible purpose, made of crystal, shiny metal, and ceramics that had been glazed with some unfathomable technique that made the blues and reds as deep and rich as the soil.

“Watch your step,” said Turi sharply.

Savn caught himself just before walking into a low table that seemed made entirely of glass. He continued more carefully, while still looking around, and it suddenly came to him that some of the crystal and metal objects were drinking vessels. He didn’t think he’d be able to drink from such objects—his hand would be shaking too much.

The shape and color of his surroundings changed. He had somehow entered another room, which might as well have been another world for all the sense he could make of anything around him, until he realized that every one of the objects that filled the room were books—different books—more books than a man could read in his entire lifetime—more books than Savn had thought had ever been written. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. These were cases that had obviously been made just to hold them. There were tables on which they lay, carelessly flung open to—

His gaze suddenly fell on a figure standing before him, dressed in a gleaming white shirt, which set off a bright red jewel suspended from a chain around his neck. The pants were also perfectly white, and baggy, falling all the way to the floor so that the figure’s feet were invisible. Savn looked at his face, then looked away, terrified. On the one hand, though he was big, it seemed odd to Savn how human he looked; the thought, He’s just a man, after all, came unbidden to his mind. But even as Savn was thinking this, he discovered that he had fallen to his knees and was touching his head to the floor, as if in response to something so deeply buried within him that it went beyond awareness or decision. As Savn knelt there, confounded and humbled, with the image of the Athyra nobleman burned into his mind, it struck him that His Lordship had seemed very pale. Unnaturally pale.

Savn tried not to think about what this might mean. When His Lordship spoke, it was with an assurance that made Savn realize that Speaker, with all his shouting, raving, and fits of temper, had only pretended to have authority—that real audiority was something stamped into someone from birth or not at all. He wondered what Vlad would say about that.

“What is it, lad?” said His Lordship. “My man tells me you have something to say about the Easterner. If you want to tell me where he is, don’t bother. I know already. If you are here asking about your Master, I’m not finished with him yet. If you want to tell me what sort of condition the Easterner is in, and what his defenses are like, that is another matter; I will listen and reward you well.”

Savn’s head spun as he tried to make sense out of this strange collection of ideas. Your Master. Master Wag? Not finished with him yet.

Savn managed to find his voice, and croaked out, “I don’t understand, Your Lordship.”

“Well, what are you here for? Speak up?”

“Your Lordship, I—” Savn searched for the words, hindered in part by no longer being certain what he wanted to find out, or if he dared ask any of it. He looked up, and his eye fell on someone who had apparently been there all along, though Savn hadn’t noticed him. The man, who Savn was certain he’d never seen before, stood behind His Lordship, absolutely motionless, his face devoid of the least hint of expression or of feeling, dressed in grey from head to foot, save for a bit of black lace on the ruffles of his shirt, and his high black boots. In some indefinable yet definite way, he reminded Savn of Vlad.

Below the collar of his cloak was the insignia of the House of the Jhereg, as if Savn needed that, or even his colors, to know that this was the assassin Vlad had spoken of.

Savn couldn’t take his eyes off him, and, for his part, the stranger stared back with the curiosity of one looking at an interesting weed that, though it didn’t belong in one’s garden, had some unusual features that made it worth a moment’s study before being pulled and discarded.

“Speak up, boy,” snapped His Lordship, but Savn could only stare. Speech was so far from him that he couldn’t imagine ever being able to talk again—the command of His Lordship, compelling though it was, belonged to another world entirely; surely His Lordship couldn’t imagine that he, Savn, would be able to form words, much less sentences.

“What do you have to tell me?” said His Lordship. “I won’t ask again.”

Savn heard this last with relief; at this moment, all he wanted from life was for His Lordship not to ask him to speak anymore. He thought about getting up and bowing his way out of the room, but he wasn’t certain his legs would support him, and if it wasn’t the proper thing to do, he might never get out of the house alive. The complete folly of coming here hit him fully, rendering action or speech even more impossible.

His Lordship made a sound of derision or impatience and said, “Get him out of here. Put him with the other one. We don’t have time now, anyway.”

Another voice spoke, very softly, with a bite to the consonants that made Savn sure it was from the Jhereg: “You’re an idiot, Loraan. We could find out—”

“Shut up,” said His Lordship. “I need your advice now less than—”

“Indeed,” interrupted the other. “Less than when? Less than the last time you ignored me and—”

“I said, shut up,” repeated His Lordship. “We don’t have time for this; we’ve got an Easterner to kill, and the troops should be in position by now.”

“And if they find him before morning I’ll eat my fee.”

“I’ll bring you salt,” said His Lordship. “We know where to begin looking, and we have enough manpower that it won’t take more than two or three hours.”

At that moment, rough hands grabbed Savn’s shoulders. The Jhereg and the Athyra did not seem to notice.

“He’ll be gone before you find him,” the Jhereg said.

Savn was pulled to his feet, but his knees wouldn’t support him and he fell back down.

“Unlikely, I’ve put a block up.”

“Around three square miles of caves?”

“Yes.”

Savn was grabbed once more, held under his armpits by very strong hands.

“Then he’s already alerted,” said the Jhereg.

Savn was dragged away. He got a last glimpse of His Lordship, hands balled up in fists, staring at the Jhereg, who wore a mocking smile that seemed the twin of the one Vlad had put on from time to time. His Lordship said, “Let him be alerted. I have confidence in your ...” and His Lordship’s voice was drowned out by a sound that Savn realized was his own boots scraping along the floor as he was taken off.

He was completely unaware of the places he passed through, and wasn’t even aware of who was dragging him, despite the fact that he heard a man’s voice and a woman’s, as if from a distance, telling him to walk on his own if he didn’t want to be beaten flat. The voices seemed disconnected from the hands pulling him along, which felt like forces of nature rather than the work of human beings.

They came to the top of a stairway, and the woman, laughing, suggested they throw him down. He thought, I hope they don’t, but knew he couldn’t do anything about it in any case.

However, they continued to drag him down the stairs, and then through a dimly lit corridor, until at last they arrived at a large wooden door, bound with iron strips, with a thick bar across it as well as a locking mechanism. They leaned Savn against a wall, where he promptly sagged to the floor. He heard sobbing and realized it was his own. He looked up for the first time, and saw who had been dragging him—two people in the livery of the Athyra, both armed with large swords. The woman had a heavy-looking iron key. She unlocked the door and removed the bar. They opened the door, picked up Savn, and pushed him inside, where he lay face down.

The door was closed behind him, and he could hear the lock turning and the bar falling. At first it seemed dark inside, since there were no lanterns such as there had been along the corridor, but then he realized there was some light, which came from a faintly glowing lightstone—a device Savn had heard about but never seen. It was high up in the middle of the ceiling, which was a good twelve feet overhead. In other circumstances Savn would have been delighted to have seen it, and studied it as best he could, but for now he was too stunned.

He saw now that what he’d at first taken to be a bundle of rags was actually a person, and he remembered His Lordship saying something like Put him with the other. He looked closer, and as his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room, he recognized Master Wag. He approached, and realized there was something wrong with the way the Master’s arm was lying above his head. He stared, hesitating to touch him, and was gradually able to see some of what had been done to him.

The room spun, the light faded in and out. Savn could never remember the next few minutes clearly; he spoke to the Master, and he shouted something at the closed door, and looked around the room for he knew not what, and, after a while, he sat down on the floor and shook.

She flew low, well below the overcast, starting out near to her lover, then gradually getting further away as their search took them apart.

The Provider had told them to be careful, to be certain to miss nothing, so they covered every inch of ground below them, starting in a small circle above the cave-mouth and only widening it a bit at a time.

She was in no hurry. Her lover had relaxed, now that the Provider seemed to be out of danger, and it was a fine, cool day. She never forgot what she was doing—she kept her eyes and her attention on the ground below—but this didn’t prevent her from enjoying the pleasures of flight. Besides, her feet had started hurting.

She recognized the large rock, the nearby house, and the winding, twisting road as things she’d seen before, but they didn’t mean a great deal to her. For one thing, there was no meat there, living or dead. At the same time she could feel, in her wings and her breath, the difference in the feel of the air when she flew over fields or over forests, over water or over bare ground where only a stubble of growth was now left. All of these added to the pleasure of flying.

She could always feel where her mate was, and they spoke, mind to mind, as they flew, until at last she looked down and saw one of the soft ones below her. This seemed strange, and after thinking about it for a moment, she realized it was because he could not have been there a moment before, and she ought to have seen him approach. She swept back around, and there was another, and no more explanation of how this one had appeared. She recalled that the Provider could do something like this, and decided that she ought to mention it. She came back around again, and by now an entire herd of the soft ones had appeared, and they were walking along the road that cut through a thin, grassy forest.

She called to her mate, who came at once. He studied them, knowing more about their habits than she; then he told the Provider what they had discovered. They watched a little longer, until the herd left the road and began to walk down the narrow, curving path that led toward the caves.

Then they returned to the Provider, to see what he wanted them to do.

Chapter Sixteen

I will not marry an aristocrat,

I will not marry an aristocrat,

treat me like a dog or cat.

Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!

Step on out ...

Coherent thought gradually returned, bringing sensations with it like trailing roots behind a plow. Savn lay very still and let the mists of his confused dreams gradually fade away, to be replaced by the vapors of true memory. He looked to see if Master Wag was really there; when he saw him, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if he could shut out the sympathetic pain. Then he looked around, staring at anything and everything that wasn’t his Master and wasn’t so terribly hurt.

The room was about ten feet on a side, and smelled slightly dank, but not horribly so. He listened for the sounds of scurrying rodents and was relieved not to hear any. There was a chamber pot in a far corner; judging from the lack of odor, it had not been used. Things could, Savn decided, be much worse.

The light hadn’t changed; he could still see Master Wag huddled against a wall; the Master was breathing, and his eyes were open. Both of his arms seemed to be broken or dislocated, and probably his left leg, too. There were red marks on his face, as from slaps, but no bruises; he hadn’t been in a fight, he had been tortured.

On seeing that Savn was looking at him, the Master spoke, his voice only the barest whisper, as Vlad’s had been after the first fever had broken, but he spoke very clearly, as if he was taking great care with each word. “Have you any dreamgrass?”

Savn had to think for a moment before replying. “Yes, Master. It’s in my pouch.”

“Fetch some out. We have no food, but they’ve left us water and a mug, over in the corner. I haven’t been able to move to get it.”

Savn got the mug of water and brought it back to the Master. He gave him a drink of plain water first, then mixed the dreamgrass into it as best he could without a mortar and pestle. “That’s good enough,” whispered the Master. “I’ll swallow it whole. You’ll have to help me, though. My arms—”

“Yes, Master.” Savn helped him to drink again and to swallow the dreamgrass.

The Master nodded, took a deep breath, and shuddered with his whole body. He said, “You’re going to have to straighten out my legs and arms. Can you do it?”

“What’s broken, Master?”

“Both legs, both arms. My left arm both above and below the elbow. Can you straighten them?”

“I remember the Nine Bracings, Master, but what can we splint them with?”

“Never mind that, just get them straightened. One thing at a time. I don’t wish to go through life a cripple. Am I feverish?”

Savn felt his forehead. “No.”

“Good. When the pain dulls a bit, you can begin.”

“I ... very well, Master. I can do it, I think.”

“You think?”

“Have some more water, Master. How does the room look? Does your face feel heavy?”

The Master snorted and whispered, “I know how to tell when the dreamgrass takes effect. For one thing, there will be less pain. Oh, and have you any eddiberries?”

Savn looked in his pouch, but had none and said so.

“Very well, I’ll get by without them. Now ... hmmm. I’m starting to feel distant. Good. The pain is receding. Are you certain you know what to do?”

“Yes, Master,” said Savn. “Who did this to you?” His eyes flickered, and he spoke even more softly. “His Lordship had it done by a couple of his warriors, with help from ... There is a Jhereg here—”

“I saw him.”

“Yes. They tied me into a chair and ... they wanted me to tell them where the Easterner was.”

“Oh. Did you tell them?”

The Master’s eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Eventually,” he said.

“Oh,” said Savn. The importance of this sank in gradually. He imagined Vlad, lying quietly in the cave with no way of knowing he’d been betrayed. “I wish there was some way to warn him.”

“There isn’t.”

“I know.” But the Easterner had means of receiving a warning. Maybe he’d escape after all. But he’d think that Savn, who had vanished, had been the betrayer. Savn shook his head. It was petty of him to worry about that when Vlad’s life was in danger, and pointless to worry about Vlad’s life when Master Wag was in pain that Savn could do something about. “Can we get more light in here?”

“No.”

“All right.” Savn took a deep breath. “I’m going to undress you now.”

“Of course. Be careful.”

“Then I will—”

“I know what you’re going to do.”

“Do you need more dreamgrass?”

“No.” The Master’s voice was almost inaudible now. He said, “Carry on, Savn.”

“Yes. It is true and it is not true that once there was a village that grew up at a place where two rivers came together. Now, one river was wide, so that one—”

“Shallow and wide.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. Shallow and wide, so that one could walk across the entire length and still be dry from the knees up. The—”

Master Wag winced.

“—other was very fast, and full—I mean, fast and deep, and full of foamy rapids, whirlpools, rocks, and twisting currents, so that it wasn’t safe even to boat on. After the rivers came togeth—”

The Master gasped.

“—er, the river, which they called Bigriver, became large, deep, fast, but tame, which allowed them to travel down it to their neighbors, then back up, by means of—”

The Master began moaning steadily.

“—clever poles devised for this purpose. And they could also travel up and down the wide, slow river. But no one could travel on the fast, dangerous river. So, as time went on—”

The moans abruptly turned to screams.

“—the people of the village began to wonder what lay along that length, and talk about—”

The screams grew louder.

“—how they might find a way to travel up the river in spite of the dangerous rapids and the swiftness of the current. Some spoke of using the wind, but ...”

Soon Savn no longer heard either his own voice or the Master’s cries, except as a distant drone. His attention was concentrated on straightening the bones, and remembering everything his Master had taught him about using firm, consistent pressure and an even grip with his hands, being certain that no finger pressed against the bone harder or softer than it should, which would cause the patient unnecessary pain. His fingers felt the bones grinding against one another, and he could hear the sounds they made, even through the drone of his own voice, and his eyes showed him the Master turn grey with the pain, in spite of the dreamgrass, but he neither stopped nor slowed in his work. He thought the Master—the real Master, not this wrecked and broken old man he was physicking—would be proud of him.

The story told itself, and he worked against its rhythm, so that the rise in his voice and the most exciting parts of the story came when his hands were busiest, and the patient most needed to be distracted. Master Wag turned out to be a good patient, which was fortunate, because there was no way to render him immobile.